Coming off Yesterday's 32-31 loss to Uruguay, the USA U20s have some work to do as they look ahead to pool games against Scotland and Zimbabwe.
For Head Coach Kyle Sumsion and the rest of the team certainly the job is to develop young players, but winning this tournament, and thus garnering entry into the U20 World Championships (recently won by France) would be an even tougher crucible in which to develop young players.
Now they need help. Because the final is a straight 1st in Pool A vs 1st in Pool B, the USA will now be hoping to get a three-way 2-1 tie and then win on bonus points or tiebreakers.
Sumsion, however, isn't looking that far ahead. He's concerned with Thursday's clash with Scotland.
"We are all disappointed in the result against Uruguay," said Sumsion. "Uruguay is a good team and we knew that the game would be a challenge. But we were not clinical enough as a team."
Errors in set piece—in scrums Uruguay won that battle and lineouts were decent, but could have been better. Yellow cards, other penalties, and losing the territorial battle all contributed.
"While we will be looking to greatly improve on those areas, I was pleased we were able to battle through adversity and challenges and stay in the fight until the final whistle," Sumsion continued.