USA Head Coach Scott Lawrence has selected the same starting 15 that played against Portugal for Saturday's test match against Tonga in Chambery, France.
This makes sense since the USA won that game against Portugal and the starting 15 came away without major injury.
Lawrence has made changes in the bench, with Mikey Grandy and Mark O'Keeffe set to make their Eagles debuts.
Greg Peterson is set to make his 50th appearance for the USA and he is again the captain; Lawrence explained why.
"It's been a real good couple of years for Greg and I think his leadership of the team has been phenomenal," said Lawrence. "We're just really happy for him."
Meanwhile, three players made their debut last week against Portugal, and this week two more can. Grandy has been an impressive player who has done enormously well to learn the game in the American Raptors program in Glendale. He is a hugely physical loose forward with a high work rate.
"With Mike we know he's the type of Tier-1 athlete that comes out of our country; he's a professional guy, does his work. He's a physical guy and an athletic guy," said Lawrence. But he needs to experience test rugby and use that experience to grow. "You know he needs to know what it feels like at this top level. To then reach that benchmark, to really gauge where he where he thinks he is. That experience and stuff, it takes a long time to get, and takes a long time to get from coaching staff to trust you. And I think he'll he'll pay it back tenfold. Yeah. So all these young bucks that are coming in have been great, and it's exciting to see them go on these next couple of years."
Looking back on the game against Portugal, the defensive stand to keep Portugal out was and is a source of inspiration for Lawrence.
"It was certainly good to see the group grow in confidence as they started defending on the tryline, and then it was back to the 22, and then it was 40 meters back, and then it was at the halfway. I looked at our attack coach Alama Iremia and I said 'they're not scoring here.'"
Defense against Tonga will be a big issue. Peterson said his team kept the working rate going through to the end of the game against Portugal and kept up the pressure; they are going to have to do the same and more against Tonga.
But defense is just part of it.
"I think we came out of the PNC and we looked at each other honestly and said that our attack needed some work," said Lawrence. "We came into Portugal a couple of days early and got another training session in and really just focused on it for two sessions. And that was the first time in 2024 that we had three series in the game that were above 13 phases. That just shows the continuity—that we were able to build the understanding and trust in the system. I think that's an important part of our game. It was an area we wanted to grow in that we were able to apply territory and defensive pressure. We need to be able to provide scoring and possession pressure as well to the opposition."
