The Eagles soar into the RWC finals

I just noticed the schedule has been put up for the RWC on their FB page. I noticed all the top nations bar England now have to play at least one game either 4-5 days after another pool match. Can anyone tell me why England the Hosts are not required to have a short turnaround between games?

I attended the first match and was very impressed by the Teros performance. I watched the second match live (the Televisión Nacional state channel showed both for the first time) and I truly believed that we could qualify directly to the World Cup. I was dishearted to see them lose it in the end, but very proud of their heoric performance. I believe that the IRB World Cup should be expanded to 24 teams, split in a 12-team Cup tournament and a 12-team Plate tournament: http://www.theroar.com.au/2014/02/01/how-to-expand-the-irb-rugby-world-cup/

Credit for writeup goes to Club President Bob "BT" Taylor.

Great write up, thanks. Fantastic to see that the spirit of rugby is alive and well in the US.

Participation is so high in the US because all of us who turned out not to be NFL-caliber football players found out in college that we could still go smash people if we played rugby instead of sitting on the bench in football. College rugby is almost everywhere in the states and there are properly big and fit fellows playing it, but the skill level and coaching talent is very scrappy outside the top 10 schools or so. That's the main thing holding us back. We don't learn the game till age 20 and once possessing enough skill to be useful, are too old to get into the lower ranks of foreign pro rugby and are needing to find a steady income rather than chasing footy dreams.

Excited to see this coverage. My home club, the Atlanta Renegades, hosted the tourists and by all accounts it was nothing short of full on fun for all. Club rugby is the heart and soul of the game in the US, and our boys did most of the grunt work independently of centralized support. A proud and auspicious day for the club, and all involved in rugby in Atlanta. For any interested, I'll post the writeup about the event: Brief recap of Uruguay National side "Los Teros" visit with the Atlanta Renegades. On Wednesday 26 March the Atlanta Renegades welcomed the Uruguay National side to our facility at Silverbacks Park. A nice crowd of coaches, players and media greeted the team, managers and coaches. "Los Teros" had two sessions on Wednesday. The morning session was an adjustment for the visitors as temperatures started and stayed in the low 30's. By afternoon the day had warmed up and an impromptu'ed photo session with The Atlanta Girls School soccer team closed out the day. Our friends at High Country Rugby provided "Los Teros" with practice facilities at Oglethorpe University on Thursday. The practice session was closed to media and fans with a few invited "guests" attending. Thursday evening The Atlanta Renegades hosted a reception and dinner for "Los Teros" at RiRa Irish Pub in midtown Atlanta. An overflow crowd of 200 greeted the visitors as we tried to make them feel at home. We had the privilege of URU President, Sebastian Pineyrua and USA Rugby South President Kevin Kitto in attendance. The Renegades presented the visitors with over 40 gifts including a welcome letter from Georgia's Governor Nathan Deal and a plaque commemorating their visit to Atlanta. The Renegades Club Captain, Brent Vickers presented "Los Teros" Captain, Arturo Avalo with the captain's gift. Around 9:45 the "Webb Ellis Cup" arrived giving everyone in attendance the "photo op" of a lifetime. At the end of the evening we wished both countries success but not too much. Three cheers for rugby and new friends followed. Our thanks goes out to the URU, IRB and RiRa. Of course on Saturday we cheered the USA side on to victory and a place in the World Cup.

Great point about belief. The Eagles often gee each other up, and make big puffy performances before getting on the field only to lose momentum 50 minutes in - so this was a good sign for the team. the US are essentially like an old-school rep team. They get together for a week before games (2 if you are lucky) and try to put it together. So not surprised the Uraguyans schooled them in the scrum. Roarers are right - they lack props with skill and technique. Athletes are not, and never have been a problem for the Eagles. Despite all the distractions of NHL, BB, NFL, literally MILLIONS of athletes do not make it into these admittedly huge pro sport programs. Rugby is played in almost every college, hundreds of high schools and clubs throughout the nation. Don't kid yourselves - now there is an Olympic Gold in 7s .... they will get the last thing they always lacked - FUNDING. Well done Eagles - good to see they have benefitted from quality coaches and competition over the past few seasons, and the dedication to develop players over the past 10 years is paying off. Hope Uruguay can do the same. Proud rugby tradition and great competitors.

The majority of the English squad are not private school boys.

The US had a big weight advantage in the scrum - over 100kg's from memory and still got pushed back often. One time was particularly embarrassing. They got pushed off their own ball then Uruguay kept going, with the ball at the foot of their 8 until the US scrum fell apart and they won the penalty. They must have pushed them back 10 metres before the penalty. If they can improve that and find some better halves they'll be a reasonable team. It will be interesting to see how they and Canada go against Scotland in June.

But the English do...

@ johnson : they would have , had rugger been a more popular sport 1. in USA and 2. worldwide. they do bring sportsmen and women for olympic sports and of course for their popular games like BB NHL NFL and baseball. football and rugger and cricket are more or less "poor" games in usa. they lack support despite involement of many. for example football has taken some significance onlt in the last 5 years AND still, David Beckham faces opposition to his plan to build a stadium in Miami. football or SOCCER as they call it is seen as a ladies sport (and the us ladiees do very well at world cups) - hence the term soccer mum :) they do play rugger and also cricket but favored by a minority and more due to ethnicity than popularity. the combined populations of USA & Canada is around 350 million. majority like the big 4 - NFL NHL NBA and baseball. (team sport) also a lot of attention is given to individual sports like athletics swimming boxing gymnastcs.... another issue may be tv audience for rugger cricket etc is low. for example when the nz maori played usa , it was difficult to find who was showing it on tv. i can think of only 2 famous guys from the team - todd clever who had a super rugby stint and Manu samoa from english premiership.

Happy to have the Eagles confirmed for the RWC 2015, especially in a group where we might be able to spring a surprise or 2. While a bit scratchy at least we kept going for the full 80 minutes, something that is not a strong point of the Eagles regardless of the opposition. As for scrum, surely it can only get better. Though not an aspect of our game we are noted for, reports are that Ollie Kalifi is a good talent and hopefully Titi Lamositele (Saracens) and Eric Fry (London Scottish) can improve their scrum work over the next year and a bit. Regardless. Go the Eagles and bring on the RWC!

No, that's why they can scrum.

Do they have GPS schools in Uraguay?

But they didn't. I think some credit has to go to Uruguay. They are ranked 20 in the World. They led both games until about 50 minutes. Maybe the coaching.

The Eagles really should have smashed Uruguay in the first game as well - they had the benefit of playing teams like NZ Maori, and they weren;t too bad in that game. If the Eagles had played Uruguay the same way they played the Maori they would have cracked 50 - as it stands, Uruguay are pretty much all amateur players, so something must be wrong with rugby USA

The US need import players

Uruguay were technically very good in all aspects of there game the natural skill is there well coached, I watched the game on the live stream, they just lacked fitness, conked out after 50 minutes, but were suprising technically superior to US, and just about all there players were amatuer, they were technically better than the wobblies. No kidding they knew there rugby, were very tough, just lacked the fitness, and couldn't execute there game plans after 50minutes, ran out of gas. Uruguay is ranked 20 now. But they will only ever advance if they get more pathways to play in Europe. A super rugby side in Argentina would be advantagous for Uruguay.

The NFL bleeds the US of all it's best power athletes. But the participation numbers are still very high. I saw Uruguay play England at Suncorp in the 2003 RWC. You might remember that England had a fairly good side that year. The RWC website showed that England had more registered rugby clubs than Uruguay had players. The result was a predictable cricket score. The Uruguayans never took a shot for goal but instead alwAys kicked for touch. The crowd loved it. The Uruguayans eventually crossed the line late in the second half. I think they named a stadium after that guy.