Comments on: USA Eagles Will Finish Rugby World Cup Winless

By: Speech

Speech — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 09:33:10 +0000

Fuck USA Rugby. South Africa will always demolish you.

By: a different Dave

a different Dave — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 02:05:18 +0000

The England game simply showed how poorly England were playing at that moment. The USA results against Tonga and Samoa are more typical and are what we should have expected.

As for growing the game in the USA, DJLitten is correct. The more that USA rugby can develop youth players, the better. But that’s a very long road, and not easy. As a soccer player I’ve experienced the institutional resistance to my sport over the past forty years in the USA. I can only imagine the situation is even worse for rugby.

What would be nice is if the Eagles could get a bit more media exposure in the USA. How often do they get to play serious test matches, apart from the World Cup and regional WC qualifying? It would be nice if we had some equivalent to the Six Nations. There really aren’t any nations in our region besides Canada who at our level. But if we look for instance to Japan and Korea we see two countries, relatively close by, who are at or maybe a bit below the level of the USA and Canada; maybe someone could find a corporate sponsor and have a “Four Nations” championship every year involving the USA, Canada, Japan, and Korea. It would help improve rugby a lot in all four countries and create some much needed media exposure.

Anyway that’s what I’d be thinking about if I were running rugby in any of those four countries. Maybe other countries could be considered as well, but mostly they seem to be either too far away (from the USA), or too far above or below our talent level, or else have their own regional competitions already.

By: DJLitten

DJLitten — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 17:23:46 +0000

Rugby will continue to grow in the US, slowly but surely. For instance, the first U-17 wasn’t established until this year, meaning national-type players weren’t identified until they were nearly in college. As more and more grade school and high school teams and leagues sprout up, so does the level of rugby.

It’ll take time, but worth it.

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 15:32:28 +0000

A harsh analysis! USA Rugby has performed admirably considering the pool they are in had no true “minnow” nations. Tonga and Samoa aren’t exactly minnows, and the US sure would have loved to have Portugal and Georgia on the map as opposed to those established rugby nations (financial woes aside). And the England game…I still have a smile on my face.

I’m proud of the boys, and I hope those deserving of contracts get them out of this affair (Zee, Clever, Stanfill). Sure they get the wooden spoon, but they did it in a pool where there were no easy W’s, and in a bizarre way I think they have proven that they can in fact comepete. Except for that whole “no wins” part.