Expectations Must Remain High for USA Women at RWC
Expectations Must Remain High for USA Women at RWC
USA Rugby's High Performance programs have enjoyed a bit of an awakening this year, but that's all feeding into a crucial fall.
Yes the Men's and Women's 7s programs have enjoyed a full season. The Women's U23s and U20s toured—the value of the U20 games is debatable, but they did happen. The Men's U23s, U20s, and U18s all played overseas. And the senior 15s teams played, with mixed results.
Front and center for the organization now, according to HP Director Dan Payne, is what's on the slate for the Women's 15s team. While Payne said his department always has to have a long-term view, and nurturing the U20 programs is a huge part of that, but getting to and performing in World Cups is important, too.
First up is the Rugby World Cup 2021, which is the Women's 15s championship, now being held in 2022 in New Zealand.
The USA is coming into the RWC 3-13 in their last 16, although Payne was quick to point out that only one loss, this year to Ireland, was to a team ranked lower. And it's true, the Eagles rarely play a team that is ranked below them, and even if that's the case, the difference in minimal. The concern, though, is that the losses to the highest-ranked teams, New Zealand, England, and France, have been by large margins. Against those three they are 0-7 with the average score a sobering 55-4.
"We have a lot of positives," said Payne. "We have more women playing overseas than we ever had men. The team got a really good win against Australia in the Pacific Four, and remember with the loss to Canada we were missing a number of players because they were in the Premiership final. What we need to do now is put them in a position to succeed. Like every team they need time together."
There's also the question about the USA's schedule. It's true that the Eagles are 3-13 in their last 16, but all of those games have been very difficult. So the question is, do you play more lower-ranked teams in order to build up confidence and more offensive continuity, or do you challenge yourself by playing the best all the time. Payne said he thinks there needs to be a blend.
"We know at this level results are how you judge outcomes, but there are other ways as well," he said. "As we look ahead we've got the WXV coming up, and that's a competition that funnels you into the level that's right for you."
The WXV, if you've forgotten, was conceived a couple of years ago, just in time to be put on ice because of COVID. But what it does for the USA is have them play in a pool with New Zealand, Australia, and Canada. The top three will move on to the WXV1, along with the top three Six Nations teams. The fourth-place team from that Pacific 4 list play in WXV2 with five other teams. So if a team is a bit down from that Pacific 4 group, they still have games and a championship to play for—presumably slightly easier ones.
This all started up officially next year. The four teams played the Pacific Four this year as a test, and had that been the case Australia would have tracked to WXV2 while New Zealand, Canada, and the USA would have gone to WXV along with England, France, and Wales.
That's nice, but all of that is on the back of a 16-14 nailbiting win over the Aussies.
Next up for the USA is a warmup against Scotland August 27 in Edinburgh and then England in Exeter a week later. It's a good period of camp and games to get it all together before they take on Italy on October 9, Japan on October 15, and Canada on October 23. If they haven't figured out their scoring issues by then they could be in trouble.
Italy, 2-3 in the Six Nations with wins over Scotland and Wales. They aren't pushovers.
So Job #1: Ensure the finding is there for a proper buildup. Job #2: Get together and build on unity of purpose. Job #3: Use the Scotland game to settle on a depth chart. Job #4: Play a full, unified 80 minutes against England that won't turn into a rout like last time. And Job #5 is our job here at GRR—remind all of us, but most of all those at USA Rugby, that the USA Women's National 15s team has a history of high standards. Making up the numbers, even if it's making up the numbers in the top four, isn't quite good enough. Do we expect victories? Not always. But fans and the press expect competitiveness throughout.
The USA winning percentage at Rugby World Cups as steadily dropped: 1.000 to .800 to .800 to .500, back up to .800 and then .600, .400, and .400. The Eagles were 4th in 2017, but that was a 2-3 effort. In 2006 they were 5th but were a far better team, losing only to England in a game that was ... well the less said about the refereeing the better.
For this year's team, it's not about beating up on minnows to pump up their confidence, that's for sure. It's been about crashing into various brick walls and hoping to dislodge some bricks. From now on we will see how many bricks they knocked to the ground.