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ARC roster takes conservative approach, again

John Mitchell's initial Eagle roster shows neither confidence in his predecessor's depth chart nor willingness to initiate a youth movement, a timid start toward 2019.

Tapping most of the 2015 World Cup veterans who aren't retired or playing 7s, USARFU's Americas Rugby Championship squad encompasses 37 players, 11 more than the tournament's weekly limit of 26. One-third are already 27 or older, and so unlikely to feature in the 2019 championship.

Athletes are being evaluated on their ability to contribute now, and USARFU has opted to use senior players in a competition suited for developing the next rung. The revived ARC, expanded to include Brazil and Chile, mainly consists of 'tier 3' opponents; 4 of 5 opponents are ranked below the US.

Beyond the return of 33-year-old Newcastle flanker Todd Clever, who fell out with past coach Mike Tolkin, there are recalls for 28-year-old Old Blue wing Luke Hume, who hasn't played for the national team in nearly 2 years, and 31-year-old 7s Eagle Nic Edwards, who has never earned a cap. Of the European professionals, only Samu Manoa and AJ McGinty aren't returning for at least a week; domestically, only Al McFarland and Seamus Kelly are healthy but unavailable. 

The 7s Eagles have been ruled out of 15s competition through the Summer Olympics. As is historically true, roughly one-third of the national team retired following the end of the quadrennial cycle.

As in the 2006 launch of the North American 4, another moment when USARFU was in the midst of a coaching transition, Boulder has shied from sampling a large cohort in their teens or early 20s. Back then, Canada took the opposite approach and won 10 of the next 11 Can-Am matches.

Argentina will field 19 of 26 players aged 23 years or less: just 3 of them have more than 6 caps. At last fall's world championship, some of the Pumas' success was attributable to the four-year policy of blooding players 'not ready' for international competition.

'The contracted players overseas bring the necessary experience of professionalism from their club cultures and, as long as they bring the right enthusiasm with that awareness to their preparation and performance, this rubs off on the younger players,' Mitchell said in a prepared statement. 'This is such an essential part of the younger players' development with our most experienced players around.'

Mitchell himself played a modest role in selections. The New Zealander has been living in South Africa, and does not yet have a visa to work in the US. Dave Williams, the national team's strength and conditioning coach for a decade, and high performance director Alex Magleby steered the process. 

All of Mitchell's top three assistants also are foreigners; all played for England's Wasps, where USARFU chief executive Nigel Melville once coached, as noted by RugbyToday; none were part of the 2015 World Cup staff.

After the tournament, Melville second-guessed Tolkin's decision to leave Clever out of the squad. However, the Xavier High and New York Athletic Club man is seen to have lost his job after posting an 0-4 World Cup record.

Separately, Zach Test *Kevin Swiryn* and Brett Thompson each suffered knee injuries at the weekend's Wellington 7s, potentially ruling them out of the Rio de Janeiro Games, RugbyToday reported. The Eagles bowed out to Australia in the plate semifinal, and lie 6th in the standings.

Pro league may spark elite game board

The coming of professional competition already may be reshaping American rugby’s top end.

Last weekend’s meeting of senior clubs, rugby businesses, and USARFU personnel produced a working group which may turn into a permanent 'elite game development board', according to people familiar with the meeting.

Such an outcome would be notable in two respects. First, although Boulder has been suggesting it doesn’t have much to do with Pro Rugby, in fact it’s deeply involved in setting up the league, and will retain core responsibilities such as eligibility and discipline. A permanent body comprising premiership teams, union officials, and commercial executives would clarify the nexus.

Second, working alongside commerical actors, rather than dictating to subordinates or vendors, would be a step change in Boulder’s worldview. It’s the difference between the top of a hierarchy and the leading star in a constellation — between a traditional rugby union and a modern national governing body. 

The adaptation could be important to USARFU’s plans to develop a digital content business comparable to ESPN or the Pac 12 Network. Both sports media businesses are heavily reliant on teams and third parties which sometimes have divergent agendas.

By contrast, the union’s record of sponsor retention has been lackluster, as evidenced by a succession of jersey vendors. The nadir: in 2012, Boulder was forced to settle a lawsuit brought by Kooga for breach of contract.

Formalizing the elite group might go through the union’s forthcoming strategic review, so it could be a half year or more in the making. 

Also this past weekend, some 360 paid to attend a USARFU game development conference in San Francisco, up from 290 a year ago in Chicago. 

Related: Senior clubs, Pro Rugby, USARFU in San Francisco talks

Senior clubs, Pro Rugby, USARFU in San Francisco talks

Senior clubs and elite-level enterprises are meeting with Pro Rugby and USARFU this weekend in San Francisco, hoping to play catchup.

USARFU chief executive Nigel Melville and high performance director Alex Magleby will be at the center of the talks, as Pro Rugby is a for-profit entity outside the governing body's membership, and so lacks a formal relationship with American Rugby Premiership and Pacific Rugby Premiership teams.

'We all agree that this is what USA Rugby needs, [a] pro league, but [it] just feels like there's not enough information given to the clubs and players who will be their "product" at the end', one club representative observed in an email.

Boulder has a lot riding on the competition's successful debut. Full-time training, similar to the 7s environments at the Olympic Training Center and the so-called Olympic development academies, is a leading element in its approach to to arresting the national team's 10-year decline against its closest rivals. The union also encouraged splashy overseas coverage of Pro Rugby's debut, even lining up World Rugby's imprimatur.

Twelve weeks ahead of Pro Rugby's planned April 17 launch, core features are undeclared, including four of six franchises. The clubs, channeling the athletes themselves, are most concerned to understand the basics: scheduling, player contracts, eligibility, etc.

At least one club, San Francisco Golden Gate, believes the New York-based league's uncoordinated recruiting of players and coaches amounts to poaching that's disrupted off-field operations. However modest the scale, SFGG and others typically subsidize key individuals; attendance and sponsorship revenue depend on the win-loss record.

A Pro Rugby executive dismissed claims of unannounced recruiting as 'incorrect'.

USARFU may struggle to play the honest broker. In the past dozen years, it has sued Rugby Super League, the ARP and PRP precedessor, to block its 2004 playoffs; introduced the North American 4 without consultation in 2006; and hounded RSL from existence in 2012.

Commercial bodies like the Los Angeles-based Tiger Rugby or Seattle's Atavus Northeast Rugby could be more immediately aligned with Pro Rugby. Tiger has already conducted a pair of West coast scouting combines for Pro Rugby. Additionally, as the academies charge training fees of their client-athletes, they will naturally point to Pro Rugby as a next step.

But efficient Pro Rugby franchises could come to operate their own development programs. Like the clubs, the accelerators see themselves as lacking details needed to draw conclusions.

Rugby Utah, which operates a development academy, is the only governing body in the mix besides USARFU, according to a draft agenda. The preponderance of clubs and commercial actors is indicative of USARFU's distance from the Southern hemisphere model, wherein the professional Super Rugby franchises are situated in an competitive hiearchy -- and financial relationship -- between the national union and the semi-professional provinces or senior clubs.

In America, competition is largely divorced from governance, complicating grounds for discussion. Each organization brings a unique perspective, each conversation begins anew. This is not Pro Rugby's doing, but it is contractually tied to the responsible body.

Moreover, as Pro Rugby is an independent startup and USARFU's balance sheet has shown a negative balance of funds for the past decade, the clubs and the accelerators can hardly expect to see any distribution of dividends.

Forward Danny Barrett returns to the 7s Eagles after recovering from injury sustained at the 15s World Cup, as the US has drawn England, France, and Samoa at the 7s World Series next stop in Wellington. 

United States to New Zealand 7s and Australia 7s

Nate Augspurger (undeclared), Perry Baker (Olympic Training Center), Danny Barrett (San Francisco Golden Gate), Will Holder (US Army), Madison Hughes (Olympic Training Center), Carlin Isles (Olympic Training Center), Matai Leuta (San Jose Seahawks), Folau Niua (Olympic Training Center), Thretton Palamo (Olympic Training Center), Ben Pinkelman (Colorado State), Maka Unufe (Olympic Training Center), Kevin Swiryn (Seattle Saracens), Zack Test (Olympic Training Center)

Youth program wins USOC backing

A youth outreach program has won US Olympic Committee backing for expanding into training school-age standouts.

Play Rugby USA, in combination with the Northeast Academy, has been named a 'Community Olympic Development Program', the USOC's designation for grassroots organizations that help athletes progress from beginning to elite levels in so-called medal sports. While the distinction brings no direct funding, the 15-person, New York-based organization can expect it to lead to operating benefits.

'This is an opportunity to build up our program ... to finish off the pyramid', PRU chief executive Mark Griffin said in an interview. 

The appointment looks to be another step in America's ambiguous move away from rugby's conventional organizational model, the union.

Traditionally, as in virtually every other country, local and regional bodies held broad responsibilities for competition, development, commerce, and so on. These functions both mirrored USARFU's efforts and progressed athletes and teams toward the national level.

Over the past decade, however, Boulder has promoted the formation of alternate school-age and collegiate bodies, in the interests of mirroring conventional American sports. Simultaneously, it has sought to re-form the broadest regional unit, the territory, in the name of efficiency.

Perhaps the outstanding result has been the abandonment of representative play. Other gaps have emerged, such as the separation of governance and competition or more than a dozen states being unrepresented in the national body's congress.

In the meantime, independent organizations ranging from PRU and the US Rugby Football Foundation to the National Small College Rugby Organization to Olympic development academies to United World Sports and Pro Rugby have sought to address areas where Boulder has been uninterested or ineffective.

As groups like PRU begin to span several functions, the purpose of the governing bodies, reformed or otherwise, is less and less clear.

Founded in 2003 by Griffin, a former Old Blue and USA hooker, PRU operates in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, often managing rugby programming through the schools system. Its flagship New York operation also include competitions management and sundry other programs.

Mitchell priorities include extended coaches group

John Mitchell's arrival as national 15s coach will reunite the New Zealander not only with chief executive Nigel Melville, but also Eagle 7s coach Mike Friday. 

In the late 1990s, Friday played scrumhalf for England's Wasps, where Mitchell was a budding forwards coach and Melville was head man.

The background didn't figure in Mitchell's hiring, according to union officials.

Still, the connection could facilitate one of Mitchell's aims, forging a cadre of 10-15 elite coaches thinking the same ways about strategy and tactics, the competitive season, player development, and so on.

Opponents now 'fear' the USA 7s team, Mitchell said in an interview, which has gained ground by result of its bona fide professional setup. He means to to extend its elements not only to the 50 or so players he estimates will be in 2015's 15s squad, but to athletes outside the Eagle program per se. Doing so entails aligning with outside coaches.

'The speed of development comes from investment in structure, recruiting, developing people,' Mitchell observed.

The coaching group would begin with the US 15s and 7s staffs and coaches of the planned Pro Rugby league, Mitchell said.

With 7s Eagles pointing at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro, the 15s team competing in March and July, and Pro Rugby hoping to get underway this spring, deep integration seems unlikely until after summer. Yet a more comprehensive approach to national-level players and resources is also in the sights of Alex Magleby, USARFU's high performance director, Mitchell's supervisor.

From a competitive perspective, two of Mitchell's 2015 priorities are defending for 4 minutes (without conceding points) and regaining structure from disorganized play. 'Intent doesn't always work. We have to be able to transition quickly', he said.

Reviewing the 2015 World Cup, Mitchell spoke of American strength at the gainline, explosive in ballcarrying and destructive in tackling. From this base, he intends to develop an attacking style with a 'higher scoring probability' that would be the basis of 'really competing' with Tier 1 nations.

Related: Mitchell hire points to shortage for domestic coaches 

Mitchell hire points to shortage for domestic coaches

Mike Tolkin was the only domestic coach interviewed for the Eagle job, filled last week by New Zealander John Mitchell.

All of the seven finalists, save for the outgoing Tolkin, work abroad, according to people familar with the matter.

The lopsided cohort reflects the past decade’s shrinking horizons for American coaches. Overseas experience alone cannot be equated with superior skill in training and leadership. Otherwise, there would be scant examples of the progression from high school to college and on to the pros routinely seen in US sports.

Although Tolkin went 0-4 at the 2015 World Cup, his 4-year record does not indicate the cohort of 2011 finalists was wholly inadequate. Upon Eddie O’Sullivan’s 2009 hiring, the contemporary proposition was that the Irishman had previously worked in the USA and would create a cadre of potential successors. And so it was in 2011 all three finalists were Americans; all were recent representative coaches, two having been Rugby Super League championship winners; and two had assisted the outgoing O’Sullivan.

But in the broader trajectory following Kevin Roberts’ becoming chairman and Nigel Melville chief executive, Tolkin’s hiring looks an aberration and the 2015 cohort a self-fulfilling outcome.

Four of five national team coaches have come from overseas. Since 2010, USARFU has abandonned representative play and collapsed the RSL — both without any nationwide successor — and has yet to introduce elite-level programming to its coach development scheme. Also, the national team coach has assumed responsibility for the ‘A’ team.

For aspiring domestic coaches, there are many fewer opportunities than ever before. For foreign coaches, a salary of $200,000-plus is too good an opportunity not to apply, particularly if you’re not holding a plum job.

Mitchell, the winner, has a wealth of experience. Best known for guiding New Zealand to third place at the 2003 World Cup, he has also lead Sale in England’s Premiership, New Zealand’s Waikato and Chiefs, Australia’s Western Force, and South Africa’s Golden Lions. As an assistant, he was worked with England and also Melville at Wasps.

Last fall, Mitchell declared his interest in coaching England, and lost out on the top job at South Africa’s Stormers, owing to his reputation for an autocratic temperament. Although his short-term results have been good, some players have resented his management. The question hanging over his career is whether he can sustain progress.

Mitchell’s first assembly, the revived and expanded Americas Rugby Championship, begins in eight weeks. With so little time to prepare, it will largely reflect Tolkin’s work.

Mitchell’s assistants are yet to be named.

What about American investors for English teams?

Might English rugby clubs become a target for American sports investors?

US money has been flowing into English soccer. Last fall, investors took minority stakes in Bournemouth and Crystal Palace. Buying into some of the Premiership’s lesser lights signaled growth potential and newfound cost controls trump the threat of relegation and regulation, the Financial Times reported.

Rugby enjoyed a highly profitable 2015 World Cup. But more than any other field sport with pretentions to a worldwide audience, its officials seek to tax and control commerce. The American union has historically begrudged entrepreneurship, while England is probably the most liquid market for franchises.

Last fall, USARFU sold a 15s license to PRO Rugby, which intends to run a 6-team, ‘single owner’ domestic league, just as in 2008 it took money from entrepreneur Bill Tatham for a 7s competition that never got off the ground. It’s not clear a USARFU license is a legal barrier to entry. Yet heavy-handed treatment of the Pacific Rugby Premiership and its predecessor, Rugby Premier League, hardly make American senior teams friendly to investors.

As a business proposition, England’s leading rugby clubs are some ways from their football cousins. The Barclays Premiership drew 13.7 million fans in 2014-15, making it the world’s 4th-biggest league by attendance, while the Aviva Premiership logged 1.8 million, not even in the top 50. A comparison of TV revenue is similarly lopsided: £5.1 billion ($7.4 billion) for a 3-year deal ending 2019 versus £152 million ($220.7 million) for a 3-year package through 2016.

But rugby's Premiership is third largest its kind, modestly behind the Southern hemisphere’s Super Rugby and the French Top 14. It’s an English-speaking competion; its franchises are privately held; and it’s situated in the world’s largest playing base, supplemented by the halo effect of the Six Nations.

Boulder has also gone into licensing foreign internationals (e.g., New Zealand-Ireland) and even club matches (London Irish-Saracens). Ironically, then, an American investor could exploit his ‘home’ market without having to contribute to its development.

Representative play in modest comeback

Representative play has made a modest comeback, with teams from the Rugby South, Capital, Northern, and Southern California unions in action in December.

Home to some of America's more populous leagues, the latter three teams were perennial contenders before USARFU abandonned its 30-year-old representative system last late decade.

The resurgence springs from players' fundamental urge to compete. Athletes who aren't on an international track nonetheless want to test themselves, to see how good they can be. Coaches, referees, and union officials see intrinsic merit in the pursuit, as well as opportunity for their own improvement.

Arguments against all-star play are numerous, most incorporating the view that geographic separation and lacking of funding fatally cripple efforts to help players systematically improve. Training is nothing more than haphazard preparation for sporadic matches. Better to concentrate energy and monies in the school or club environment.

Boulder never declared an end to representative competition. But in shying from organizational expense, hoping professionalized franchises were just around the corner, and failing to consider how the pell-mell transition from territorial to geographic unions would encompass rep-side matches, its lack of action stripped the all-star championships of their national dynamic.

In the current decade, the most interesting new competitions have originated outside USARFU: the 7s Collegiate Rugby Championship, the Varsity Cup, the hoped-for PRO Rugby league. But such expansion means the schedule has grown more crowded and demand for players multiplied.

While the representative game's future is far from clear, there may be a model in the South Panthers. Save for Atlanta's Life University, Southern teams haven't produced many Eagle hopefuls. But the South has forged a regular schedule against Caribbean opponents, and even won the North American-Carribean Rugby Association (NACRA) title in 2013.

Guildford 16 Sidcup 14 (halftime: Guildford 10-9)

(Guildford, UK) Freddie Hooper's last-minute penalty goal earned Guildford a 16-14 win over Sidcup Saturday, solidifying the Surrey side's hold on second place in England's London 1 South competition.

The playing caliber of the country's sixth tier, comprising 114 teams spread over 8 regions, probably lies somewhere between the USA's better second-division and average first-division teams. But its institutional standards -- facilities, administration, and so on -- are significantly better.

Surrey, a well-to-do county located southwest of London, counts 1.1 million residents and so is broadly comparable to New York's Westchester, Virginia's Fairfax (adjacent to Washington DC), or the Bay Area's Contra Costa. One of rugby union's historical strongholds, it's home to 70-odd clubs, most with 3 or 4 senior teams plus age-grade XVs, and a smattering of smaller outfits. England's Rugby Football Union administers first-team competitions, while Surrey Country manages the reserve grades.

As such, it's not so much that the fields, clubhouse, and front-office management and Guildford and suchlike are so much better than, for example, White Plains or NOVA. Instead, the density of competitive options means players can choose which program is best for their circumstances: athletes can readily find the 'right level'.

A recreational player may ask himself, given my job and family responsibilities, do I want to start for Godalming or play in the seconds for Guildford? A more ambitious player may have his eye on Esher, Richmond, or perhaps even the Harlequins.

American rugby hasn't been comfortable with fluid movement of players. Harking to the days when clubs were few, there is latent suspicion of more competitive clubs 'stockpiling' players, supposedly at the expense for smaller teams. (In 7s, however, the tradition of summertime-only, specialist teams lives on in the so-called Olympic development academies, an acceptable end run around the grassroots.)

The strategic impetus of player movement is not efficient transfer regulations, but in-season roster management such as in Major League Baseball. The goal is fast tracking promising athletes into better training and tougher competition. A decade ago, the North American 4 raised the question, but receded with the tournament's swift collapse. With the PRO Rugby competition set to launch this spring, the matter should resurface.

Football crossovers predominate 7s Eagles

Two-thirds of the 7s Eagles are football crossovers.

Mike Friday's squad for the opening leg of the 2016-17 Sevens World Series, kicking off this weekend in Dubai, features six college players and another two who were recruited out of high school. The proportion is the highest in the Olympic era, according to Rugby Today, which recently reviewed the team in detail.

Crossover athletes have ever been seen as a potential strength of American rugby. Opponents fear and coaches seek out the athleticism honed in the high-performance environments of our native sports.

Past chair Kevin Roberts swept into power proclaiming the union's intent to draft NCAA football players into rugby's elite ranks, without notable success. A decade later, it seems 7s is a more efficient way to intake former gridiron players. 

Perry Baker, a onetime NFL free agent who became a 7s starter last season, essentially picked up the game just three years earlier.

The US finished sixth on the 2014-15 circuit, its highest, and captured the England 7s, the first time it has won a tour stop.

Having gained access to the Olympic Training Center in 2012, however, USARFU hasn't fulfilled its goal of promoting 7s Eagles to become 15s regulars en masse. 

It remains to be seen whether coach Friday prefers ex-footballers or simply those athletes who have reached the OTC. Of the 12-man squad for the opening World Series tournaments, all but the Seattle Saracens' Kevin Swiryn are training in San Diego.

The season opens with Portugal, France, and New Zealand in Dubai's pool C. Madison Hughes captains the team.

United States to Dubai 7s
Nate Augspurger, Perry Baker, Garrett Bender, Will Holder, Madison Hughes (captain), Carlin Isles, Matai Leuta, Folau Niua, Kevin Swiryn, Zach Test, Brett Thompson, Maka Unufe