GRR: National Teams
The USA Women’s 7s team is scrimmaging Canada and Brazil at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash. this week.
It’s an excellent chance for the three programs to test some players and get some live action. USA and Canada have two squads in action and Brazil one as the teams play games through Tuesday and Wednesday at TESC’s extensive fields in the middle of campus.
In our analysis of the USA v Italy game we’ve come up with a few key areas that made a difference, one way or the other.
Several USA players have said this weekend that Saturday’s game again Italy was the true beginning of the John Mitchell era.
The reasoning is fairly logical - this was the first game where Mitchell got to pick his own players, as he was hired too late to do that in the Americas Rugby Championship in February.
Will Holder’s performance at fullback for the USA Saturday was a nice highlight for player, team, and fans.
The former West Point All American is in the USA 7s program, and has been capped at flyhalf, but looked very much at home in a #15 jersey.
“It was fun,” Holder told Goff Rugby Report. “It was a great new experience, and the guys made it easy for me.”
Wings Leonardo Sarto of Italy and Taku Ngwenya of the USA both left the field after four minutes on Saturday with nasty head injuries.