On the Under 20 team's next chapter

In winning the Junior World Rugby Trophy, Scott Lawrence, Will Magie, and crew have prompted reevaluation of age-grade success.

America's Under-20 team is 13th in the world. Its senior national team is 17th. USARFU's primary competitive goal is a quarterfinal berth at the 2015 World Cup.

Is avoiding relegation at the 2013 Junior World Championship meaningful progress? What if next year's team plays still better, against assuredly better opposition, but fails to win any games and so falls back to the JWRT?

The USA U20 team now has five campaigns under its belt. Converted from a U19 outfit, the squad began preparing in fall 2007 for the 2008 JWC, then a 16-team tournament. Losing all of its its pool matches as well as a pair of playoff games, it was relegated to the JWRT. A year later, America nearly bounced right back, reaching the finals before falling to Romania. After skipping the 2010 tournament partly due to scheduling -- the competition's subsequent shift to after the school year has helped the USA's cause -- 2011 was a forgettable 1-3, all of the losses suffered in pool play.

With much of 2012's 27-man roster apparently eligible to compete again, the 2013 edition might well hold its own. Only 4 are presently 20 years old. This year's return of Magie, the Leeds University flyhalf, and Madison Hughes, the Dartmouth fullback (by way of England's Wellington College), proved vital in going from 1 to 6 wins (including a pair of pre-tournament victories over Canada).

Experience also looks to have helped the coaching staff. Appointed in October 2010, Lawrence and three of his assistants traveled to the 2011 tournament in Georgia.

If reaching the top 8 in 40 months is a serious goal, however, then the definition of age-grade success ought to include individual development -- the number of players progressing from the U20 to the senior national team. As the junior team is ranked higher than the senior XV, one should expect a relatively high percentage to advance, compared with our rivals.

From November 2007 through June 2011, some 94 U20 players represented the USA, according to USARFU's web site. To date, 4 have gone to play for the Eagles: forwards Scott Lavalla (U20 debut: December 2007, test debut: June 2010), Taylor Mokate (December 2007, June 2012), and Shawn Pittman (December 2007, November 2009) and back Tai Enosa (April 2009, June 2011). (Note: Back Thretton Palamo played for the senior team at the 2007 World Cup before he played for the U20 side in 2008.)

Will any of the JWRT squad advance to this fall's 'sub international' Americas Rugby Championship? What about the other age-grade program, the Collegiate All-Americans, which last summer posted a convincing series win over New Zealand Universities Under 21?

The final chapter of the USA's 2012 JWRT championship will be finished only when one can count the starters at the 2015 World Cup, already just three seasons away.

United States Under 20: 2012 Junior World Rugby Trophy Champions
Forwards: Nick Barrett (Minnesota State), Pierce Dargan (Trinity College), Cameron Falcon (Louisiana State), Alex Goff (Arkansas State), Henry Hall (Auckland Univ.), Caspar Huizenga (Kutztown), Angus MacLellan (Davenport), Maika Moala (Titans), Tim O'Hara (Santa Clara), Aladdin Schirmer (Central Washington), Mike Te'o (Belmont Shore), Glen Thommes (Delaware), Vei Tomasi (Oakland Warthogs), Teli Veamatahau (Metropolis), Travis Whitlock (Back Bay)
Backs: Tanner Barnes (Central Washington), Nick Boyer (California), Iniki Fa'amausili (Glendale), Madison Hughes (Dartmouth), Pasefika Iosia (Belmont Shore), Tua Laei (Brigham Young), Sione Letoi (Tempe), Will Magie (captain, Leeds Univ.), Kingsley McGowan (St. Mary's), Eakalafi Okusi (California), Alex Taefu (Tempe), Noah Tarrant (Oceanside)
Management: Scott Lawrence (coach), Gavin Hickie (forwards), Jason Kelly (backs), Vaha Esikia (skills), Justin Goonan (strength & conditioning), Mike Damantopolous (video), Ben Cowin (medical), Justin Hickey (manager)

Comments

[I played drek rugby - and loved it]

I think 2019 will be a better measuring stick. Players going through to the Sr team will at that point be seasoned veterans. That said, one or two of these players should be considered for the fall tour.

[RWC 2051!]

Anyone who thinks we will be in the quarterfinals in 2015 is a dreamer. We'd do extremely well to finish in the top 3 in our pool in 2015, thus qualifying directly for 2019.

Take a long view, people. This was a really nice result, but it's too early to think that this is part of some great leap forward. It's progress, very welcome progress, but it's one step at a time...and there are a lot of steps.

I truly believe that we can win the RWC...in about 40 years. In the meantime, we need to be patient and not flail about for immediate gratification.

[change is needed]

Change the US rugby leadership and we could achieve more and more quickly.

[Delusional College Rugby]

"Change the US rugby leadership and we could achieve more and more quickly."

Blah blah blah. Same song and dance. And the new leadership would do what exactly that the current leadership won't/can't?

[change is needed]

Plan and execute 100% of USAR's business better. Improved vision and leadership. This administration could hardly be worse.

The only blah blah blah is the bullshit coming from the supporters of these overpaid losers.

[7's seasons]

I give USAR credit for at least finalizing a seasonal schedule for college and club 7's.

It is clear if you want to play club 7's that mid to late summer is when it happens. Likewise, with the college 7's championship slated for Nov, college 7's will take over the fall. RM has a story up about the Pacific Northwest schools moving to a fall 7's season. This is a big change for the PNW.

[Delusional College Rugby]

"Plan and execute 100% of USAR's business better. Improved vision and leadership. This administration could hardly be worse."

Specifically, how? I'm tired of clownshoes complaining about things on the internet without a realistic and discernible action plan? What goals would you like to see realistically carried out and how do you think they would be carried out? Do you think making yourself CEO would magically get shit done?

[Laughable]

"I give USAR credit for at least finalizing a seasonal schedule for college and club 7's."

You having a laugh?
The college conferences and the college teams themselves have implemented schedule not USAR!

[What's the metric?]

Its an interesting topic Kurt. I wonder if your measure of success being whether or not a U20 progresses to the national team is necessarily applicable here. There are many causal factors that happen in someone's life between 18/19 and adulthood such as education decisions, family decisions(start one, unexpectedly or not), career decisions, maturation of the athlete(competitive physically at a young age but doesn't grow), availability of players from top collegiate programs at time of selection, late joining athletes to the sport, passport hunting, etc... its tough to say. Not that I have a better metric to judge them, just to say that I'd have a hard time looking back in 2015 and saying the current U20 team and/or staff was unsuccessful because only say 3 or 4 of the team became Senior Eagles. It would be less accurate than forecasting the weather, I think we'd all take that % in this case!

Another thing I am curious about is the threads on here regarding overpaid staff. Does anyone know if the U20 staff from this current team were all full time employed and what their salary ranges were? Allot of talk about them being a poor administration, just curious if these coaches are employed full time to do this...Hmm, how much was spent there?

[Delusional College Rugby]

Does anyone realize how many "5-Star" HS football players never even make it to the NFL, nonetheless the Pro Bowl? F*ck, some of them never even start at a major university.

[Delusional College Rugby]

By "overpaid staff" flamethrowers usually mean Nigel and possibly a few past national team coaches (Eddie O, anyone?). The people I've spoken with at USA Rugby do not make very much (who does in non-profit work?), but the CEO isn't poor. Then again, the CEOs of much smaller non-profits than USA Rugby make as much or more than Nigel, so "overpaid" sounds ridiculous unless it's an immature way of saying one isn't living up to inflated expectations.

[RWC 2051!]

DCR is right. To judge the success of this program primarily by how many make it to the senior team is unrealistic. When you think of the vast resources (both inside the system and in the media) that go into evaluating and developing football players in this country, and then consider the fact that Ryan Leaf was drafted #2 and Tom Brady #199, you have to expect that being the best at U-20 correlates weakly with being the best later on. A real downside to expecting these teams to produce future Eagles is that it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy; if people have a vested interest in their making it, then resources may become unproductively focused on the wrong athletes.

One thing that really pleased me about this team is the sheer variety of teams they come from. Elite college teams like Cal and BYU were represented, but so were some fairly obscure teams and a lot of others in between. Some play overseas. Some play for elite domestic clubs, and others play club rugby at a low level. And some are still playing youth rugby.

Either the selectors were being very political in their choices (making sure everyone was represented) or they were casting their nets wide and were open-minded enough to evaluate players without being prejudiced by their origins. I think they deserve the benefit of the doubt.

[Red Cards]

The IRB Disciplinary Committee has suspended Andrew Suniula for two weeks and Paul Emerick for nine weeks as a result of their red cards against Italy. It may be possible those suspensions could be served during 7's season.

[This Is American Rugby]

Red Cards,

Are you going to at least credit my website when you take content verbatim?

[This Is American Rugby]

I don't mind if you do, it would just be a nice gesture.

[Regal Eagle]

A few things:

-a realistic and tangible goal for 2015 should be to get top 3 and auto-qualify for 2019.

-prospects don't always pan out but the whole point of age grade teams are to develop players for the national team. I don't agree, however, that judging the u20 by how many players go to the senior national team is the way to go. Some players come to the game late and some are poaches. Plus, you could have the highest rate of u20>senior in the world and still be complete shit. Judging the quality of the players produced should be qualitative, not quantitative.

-I could be wrong but I believe only the guys born in 1993 (or later) will be back next year. And Tua Laei will be gone on a mission so he won't be back either. Per the IRB website that leaves (* for someone who started the final):

Henry Hall*
Cam Falcon*
Casper Huizenga
Maika Moala
Vei Tomasi
Mike Teo
Nick Barrett*
Alex Goff*
Veli Veamatahau
Nick Boyer*
Alex Taefu
Eakalafi Okusi
Noah Tarrant*

So assuming they all come back, that's 6 who were first choice this year, plus another 4 who were in the 22 for the final. I believe this year's team only returned 4 players from the previous year, which makes the turn around all the more impressive.

[Beagles]

Most the U20 side are only playing rugby for what they get out of it. (U20 paid trip to France? YES!) The majority of them are in the college game, which is massively weak compared to their contemporaries who will be in Pro Rugby academies or playing against men for the next twelve months. I'm talking about England, New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, Wales, Scotland, South Africa, Ireland and Scotland. USA may have a shot against Samoa or Fiji, but don't hold your breathe.

[South Park]

@This is American Rugby does not charge for his website. He actually gave the details of the suspension, just linked to the premier article from rugbymag about the suspensions, not the IRB press release.

You should redirect your ridiculous and misplaced anger to the deserved party, not him.

Kurt, please feel free to delete this comment when you delete the one above.

[Delusional College Rugby]

So, I think the U20s have a decent shot of staying in the JWC for a few years, but I stumbled across this result while trying to find the regulation about when in the year the U20 cutoff begins (see the link on my name). Our boys need to know that it's gonna be "step-up" time.

Wales U20 119-7 Japan U20

Wow.

[kurt oeler]

It's not hard to use real emails ...

[PacMan]

What's with all the drama about the establishment of a Pac12 rugby conference. Just do it and stop the games.

[Red Card]

One of the big questions for the U-20's as they approach next year's Junior World Championships is how many of the current members of the team will be around for next year? The answer to that question lies in when is the cutoff date for that year's tournament. After doing a big of snooping, it seems that the cutoff date is January of that year. What that means is if you turn 20 years old that year, you are eligible to play. (I may end up being wrong. Please feel free to correct me.)

So, for next year, that means that if you were born in 1993 you would be eligible for next year's Junior World Championship. For the U.S., that means that 14 players would be eligible for next season: Henry Hall, Maika Moala, Vei Tomasi, Cameron Falcon, Casper Huizenga, Mike Te'o, Nick Barrett, Alex Goff, Teli Veamatahau, Nick Boyer, Alex Taefu, Tua Leai, Ekalafi Okusi, and Noah Tarrant.

Those not eligible to return include: Angus Maclellan, Travis Whitlock, Pierce Dargan, Tim O'Hara, Aladdin Schirmer, Glen Thommes, Will Magie, Tanner Barnes, Sione Letoi, Madison Hughes, Pasefika Iosia, Kingsley McGown, and Iniki Fa'amausilli.

It's obvious that the team is going to lose some of its star players. The losses of Madison Hughes and Will Magie will be particular hard on the team. However, they do have some excellent players returning. Cameron Falcon has excellent at hooker, as was Henry Hall at prop. Noah Tarrant scored three tries in the final. But that is what happens in age-grade tournaments.

The good news for the U.S. is that that High School All-Americans program looks to be on solid footing and turning out great players. They assemble next week for a tour of South America.

[Ru-glee]

Rugby is becoming Glee. Pathetic.

http://www.rugbydump.com/2012/07/2667/new-fijian-wardance-performed-vs-scotland-the-i-bole

[Grant Cole]

I was impressed with Red Card's retort, until I read Curtis' blog and realized it was a copy & paste.

[Grant Cole]

Does anyone know what teams the HSAA's will be playing in RSA & what venues?

[Working Class Rugger]

Thought they were off to South America to play Chile, Uruguay and Argentina U18s. Didn't they go to the RSA last season?

[Grant Cole]

Right you are! Thanks!

[Varsity]

The drama with the Pac Rugby, might be that they do not plan on playing in any santioned USA Rugby Competition...so i guess there would not be any drama at all they might just do thier own thing.

[Grant Cole]

So is PacRugby's biggest problem with the stipulations that their #1 team would have to playoff against D1-A's Pacific Division #2 to advance?
Surely, PacRugby doesn't see this as a difficult task, right?

[UnBearAble]

I think the drama is about if the Pac 12 teams are in D1-A or D1-AA. I'm hearing that JC doesn't want to be in D1-A because he is figuring on a Varsity Cup final payday with BYU. If Cal is in D1-AA, JC can split his side come crunch time with his 2nd side getting Cal into the D1-A semis or final and the 1st side playing in the Varsity Cup. If the timing works out right, the D1-A semi-final and final could be a warm up for the Cal 1st side going into the Varsity Cup.

This strategy sees Cal bringing home a lot of hardware and a payday from the Varsity Cup final, which will probably be played in Utah.

[college]

The usar playoff stipulation isn't that important. I think Cal as the likely winner of the Pac Rugby conference is going to join BYU in the Varsity Cup playoffs.

What will Utah do is the question. If they also join the Varsity Cup then it will be Pac #3 to the USAR playoffs.

It appears the timing of the two competitions makes it unrealistic or impossible to play in both post-seasons.

[wrt]

Cal and JC's intend was always to establish the Pac-12 rugby conference first and foremost. Cal doesn't care about the D1a-aa post-season. What difference does it make which one you play in? With BYU and Cal out these two divisions are looking similar. If the Varsity Cup has the teams rumored, it will be a very good national championship. BYU, Cal, the military academies and a few others make this the real championship. A better national post-season competition than the teams left in D1A. Where we need to get to is conference championship's meaning something. Where players and fans are excited if they win a conference title. Only 3-5 teams even have a chance to win a national championship. Lets grow college rugby by having dozens of champions. Who cares if Davenport beats Dartmouth or BYU beats Arkansas State for the national championship. The better title to grow the game is the conference championship.

[UnBearAble]

"BYU, Cal, the military academies and a few others make this the real championship."

Without Life, Ark State, Davenport and other up and coming full varsity programs the Varsity Cup is just a dog and pony show for Cal and BYU to make some cash.

[Roger Roger]

Well said WRT. I respect the hell out of teams like Life, Arkansas St, St. Mary's, etc who are sincerely trying to beat BYU and Cal. It's a noble pursuit.

But at the same time, I appreciate that a team like Dartmouth could say - in the short term - getting the Ivy League up and running is priority #1 while still competing at a very high level.

I'm always skeptical of JC, just because I know he is working solely in Cal's best interest while people assume he's working in College Rugby's best interest (d'uh). However, if they sincerely have made these moves in the last two years to ensure Pac Rugby gets up and running I have to respect that too.

[Reality]

Whatever JC does there will be a large and vocal group saying it is the next greatest thing to happen in College rugby (i.e. CPD, Pac 12 Conference, Varsity Cup), but the reality is rugby is light years behind even Lacrosse as a collegiate sport. 99% of the teams are club sports teams with little funding or discipline. JC's follies is not going to change that, but neither is the lack of leadership at USA Rugby. It is a perpetual state of mediocrity dating back to the 60s.

[CRC fan]

JC isn't running with the Varsity Cup. For good or bad this is a BYU idea. I think good. Cal will join the other teams but its not Jack's baby.

[Shooter the Dog]

CRC fan, source ?

[BYUnicorns!]

CRC fan = JC boot licker

[Can't have your cake and eat it too....]

Wait, what is the Varsity Cup? I've been out of touch for a few weeks. Who created it? Thanks

[CHEAP AIR MAX]

ppen in College rugby (i.e. CPD, Pac 12 Conference, Varsity Cup), but the reality is rugby is light years behind even Lacrosse as a collegiate sport. 99% of the teams are club sports teams with little funding or discipline. JC's follies is not going to change that, but neither is the lack of leadership at USA Rugby. It is a perpetual state of mediocrity dating back to t