The USA Men's National 15s Team can win a competition.

Despite losing several players to injury, and seeing the last of their overseas pros go back to their clubs, the Eagles are in a position to win. They didn't win the old Pacific Rim Championship, or it's descendent, the Epson Cup. The Eagles didn't win the Pan-Am Series, any of them, or the Churchill Cup, or the non-test-match version of the Americas Rugby Championship. But they can win this year's ARC.

How? Well, let's see:

1. Beat Brazil and Uruguay and score four tries in those games. If they do that, the Eagles cannot be caught by anyone.

2. Beat Brazil with a bonus point, but fail to get a bonus point in a win over Uruguay. Then, assuming Argentina earns two bonus-point wins, the USA needs to maintain a points difference superiority, which happens as long as Argentina's PD in the final two games is more more than 31 points better than the USA's. (If it's 32 points better, then we go to another level of tiebreaker which is a bit scary).

3. Beat Brazil and Uruguay and get only one bonus point, while Argentina fails to get two bonus-point wins.

4. USA wins their final two games and Argentina does not, and losing to Canada is a real possibility.

Meanwhile, Argentina can win most easily if USA fails to beat Uruguay. The last time the USA played Uruguay in Montevideo was in March, 2014, and it was a 27-27 tie. But the teams are very different this time around.

The Eagles have undergone some player shifts. Nic Edwards was cruelly felled by a knee injury after an impressive start to his USA 15s career against Chile. Veteran Andrew Suniula is replacing him. Lorenzo Thomas is back at school at Lindenwood. Nate Brakeley is back at work in New York. Todd Clever has returned to the Newcastle Falcons. Patrick Blair is back with the USA 7s program. Eric Fry - stay tuned. He was expected to return to Newcastle, but we're confriming

Meanwhile, center Andrew Suniula, flanker Aladdin Schirmer, flanker Hanco Germishuys, and wing Tim Stanfill have joined the squad. We are waiting to confirm a couple of other player moves.