It’s major changes and not so much in terms of changes as USA Men’s 15s Head Coach Scott Lawrence picks his side to face Belgium Saturday night at American Legion Memorial Stadium.

Only one change is in the backline compared to the USA’s November, 2024 test against Tonga. Connor Mooneyham is injured and so Toby Fricker comes in at wing. While they did field a slightly different group a week later (Mark O’Keeffe in for Mooneyham and Erich Storti in for Mitch Wilson), for the most part this is the USA’s backline lineup now.

At the same time, the forwards see some significant shifting. In fact, of the eight starting forwards that faced Spain in November, only two, flankers Vili Helu and Cory Daniel, will play against Belgium. Four of the starters (Helu, Daniel, Shilo Klein, and Jack Iscaro) started against Tonga.

The reason for this is in part injury, in part retirements (Greg Peterson, Cam Dolan), part return from injury, and part some players reaching their residency eligibility threshold.

Marno Redelinghuys, who first came to the USA to play and study at Life University in their graduate program, has long been known to Lawrence (a Life grad himself). Clearly the wait has been on to see what the 6-5, 260 lock can do for the USA. The hard-hitting second row helped the Houston Sabercats to a MLR final appearance. He is 32, and his experience should help the Eagles.

Tonga Kofe will also make his debut and he brings in size and power at tighthead prop. At over 300 pounds he is a massive presence.

“He’ll be getting his 1st cap and he's an exciting prospect; a 325-pound tighthead is is always a good thing to have—just seeing how he goes and his impact at set-piece time early in the game.” said Lawrence.  

Three other potential new caps are on the bench, including 6-6 lock Tevita Nagali, another player for whom the wait was on to see when he would establish residency. He has done that, having played for Old Glory since 2020. He is tall, mobile, and has good hands.

Makeen Alikhan is quite young at 23 but grew up in the USA before playing overseas. He is kind of a hunter-seeker at flanker.

Chris Heilsenbeck played for Germany, but the World Rugby rules say you can switch countries if you go play for the country of your birth, which is what Hilsenbeck is doing. He has been a professional rugby player and an international since 2012, and brings a ton of experience as a flyhalf and center.

Benjamin Bonasso comes in as the captain at No. 8. The choice of him as skipper came down to a list of factors, said Lawrence.

“There's a number of things that put Ben in [as captain]. The first thing is, a number of former international players, former Eagles, had played with Ben. He was a captain with them, and so, first and foremost, the people that you trust, when they say that he's a good leader in in their environment, that holds a tremendous amount of weight. The second thing was when we brought him into the Leadership group and got to spend four days with him, it became very clear in the balance of the leadership within the squad that Ben's role as captain was the role we wanted him to fill in that structure.

“And then finally, put your faith in God, but everybody else bring data. So we we went with social scientists, and we did a number of interviews and things, and looked at player trust factors and things like that, and Ben has scored very high in terms of trust and respect amongst his peers. So that was ultimately what made him the captain.”

For Bonasso, who was born in Connecticut but learned his rugby in Argentina, the selection as captain is a proud moment.

"Scott told me a couple of days ago; it's a huge honor," Bonasso said. "It's still kind of surreal, you know, and I'm just grateful for the opportunity. It's great to be the captain of the boys. The good thing is, we have a very strong core here, the leadership group and we drive the the standards and drive what we want as a group. So it's it's really useful for me. I'm trying to lead by example, bringing the energy and support for the boys. I'm really really proud to be representing this group."

The leadership group, in fact, assembled early for this test match period, getting the plan together and also pairing veterans with younger and enwer players to make sure everyone was on the same page.