USA Men's 15s Head Coach Gary Gold has named his squad to face Tonga in the final pool game for both teams in the 2019 Rugby World Cup.

The game is one of those thought to be in jeopardy because of Typhoon Hagibis, but for now it is on.

Gold retains 21-year-old Ruben de Haas at scrumhalf. The former Arkansas Junior Stormer and HS All American captain started four days ago against Argentina on his 21st birthday.

"No other place I’d rather be," he said after the game. "This is like a dream come true. I wouldn’t want to be spending my 21st birthday anywhere else."

Assessing the game against Argentina, the scrumhalf added that "we’re not happy with the result. After the game, we felt like, we know we can do better than this. We’re a way better team than we pitched up today."

Malon Al-Jiboori will start at openside flanker. This will be the Union HS (Okla.) grad's first appearance in the Rugby World Cup. Al-Jiboori logged some of the best speed scores among the USA forwards in training.

Will Hooley returns at fullback and joked after the Argentina game that he was just happy to finish the game, after being injured against England.

"It’s a short turnaround with Tonga on Sunday," said Hooley. "We have to get things right. For us, not winning a game here at the World Cup, we’ll see as a huge negative. We’ve got to dust ourselves down, recognize where we went wrong and be better for Sunday. There might be a few sore bodies. Obviously, over this period of time we’ve played a few games. It’s World Cup rugby. Just being out there in the stadium today and hearing the atmosphere, it’s what you dream for. Four days doesn’t make a difference—we’ll be out there, we’ll be ready to go."

The game kicks off at Hanazono Rugby Stadium on Sunday 13 October. The USA has beaten Tonga only once, 30-10 in 1999 in San Francisco, but since then Tonga has won eight in a row, including a 25-15 victory in the 2007 Rugby World Cup in Montpellier, France. The last meeting, in Spain in 2017, was a 20-17 Tonga win.

USA Lineup vs Tonga

1. Eric Fry
2. Joe Taufete’e
3. Titi Lamositele
4. Greg Peterson
5. Nick Civetta
6. Tony Lamborn
7. Malon Al-Jiboori
8. Cam Dolan
9. Ruben de Haas
10. AJ MacGinty
11. Marcel Brache
12. Paul Lasike
13. Bryce Campbell
14. Blaine Scully (capt.)
15. Will Hooley

16. James Hilterbrand
17. Olive Kilifi
18. Paul Mullen
19. Ben Landry
20. Hanco Germishuys
21. Ben Pinkelman
22. Nate Augspurger
23. Mike Te’o