USA Eagles Advance to the 2007 Rugby World Cup
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by user BigPPup
After being destroyed by Canada earlier in the summer, the United States rugby team had their back against the wall, if they wanted to qualify for the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. If the U.S.A. wanted to punch their tickets to France they needed to be on the upside of the point’s differential in a home and home series with Uruguay.
The first leg of this two game series was played on September 30 in Montevideo Uruguay. After a slow start to the match trailing at the half 11-13, that would be the last time they would trail for the series. In the second half the Eagles put on one of the greatest offensive explosions in American Rugby history. The Eagles ran off 30 unanswered points in the second half in route to a 42-13 victory.
On the flight home from Uruguay the United States could see their World Cup birth at hand. After a convincing game one victory Uruguay would need to defeat the United States by 29 points in game 2 if they wanted to advance to the World Cup. The Eagles were not about to allow this to happen.
October 7, in Stanford California the US Eagles took the field for the second game of their two game World Cup Qualifier series knowing exactly what needed to be done in order to advance to the Cup.
The Eagles wasted no time getting to the job at hand on Saturday scoring within the first two minutes of the game. The Eagles would continue to pour in on finishing the day with a 33-7 win. Uruguay was only able to score one try in the first half. As they saw their hope of making the 2007 World Cup dashed.
While both of these victories were impressive for the American squad as they prepare to break for the winter months. However it still shows the weakness within the American Rugby program. The USA was unable to take their entire squad for this two game playoff series due to passport and visa problems with some players and work commitments. This caused the Eagles to use teams that would not have had the depth that Coach Peter Thorburn would have liked.
Secondly the USA dominated both these games but was unable to put on the exhibition they should have. There were plenty of opportunities for the Eagles to put more points on Uruguay and they were unable to execute. The quality teams across the world would have taken full advantage of scoring opportunities and put more than the 42 and 33 points the Americans did.
Advancing to the World Cup was the easy part for the United States. More than likely they will be put into a pool with the New Zealand All Blacks in 07, and if history has shown us anything, this could be very ugly the Eagles.
