In our last post we discussed the depth of the forward positions, who are the starters when everyone is fit and available, who are in the rotation, and who should be getting time in camp and with the squad. This time around we’ll be looking at the depth of the backs at their respective positions, and give our brief opinion on the outlook for each.

This past year was an interesting one for the Eagles, there were a lot of ups and downs as they navigated through a short schedule with a new head coach and had to watch the World Cup from home. While failing to qualify for the World Cup was a massive blow, the Eagles have pressed on and shown a lot of resilience and determination this year, as they start building toward the next World Cup in Australia.

The Eagles were competitive for most of this match against a very good Georgian side. They brought physicality and energy against the #11 team in the world, and never gave up the fight. The final score was 22-7 in favor of the hosts. They did, however, give up a high number of penalties and failed to take advantage of being up a man and multiple trips to the Georgian 22.

A much different performance this week for the Eagles, as they fall to Portugal, 46-20. They were competitive early, making it a tight match with the Portuguese opposition, leveraging their physicality to force penalties and apply pressure. They struggled late in the second half as Portugal was able to run all over their defense and pull away. Ultimately, while the forward pack matched up well and at times had the leg up on their opposites, the backline struggled throughout and the Eagles were unable to take full advantage of the high penalty count of the Portuguese and their yellow card.

The USA defeated Romania in Bucharest 31-17, in what was a great performance for the first squad under Scott Lawrence. The first 60 minutes were superb for the Eagles, who dominated all faucets of the match. However, they faltered somewhat in the final quarter, but held on for a convincing win. Today we will be looking at each player’s performance and giving them a rating on a 1-10 scale.

We’re now just a few days away from the Under 20s Trophy kicking off in Kenya, with the first four matches taking place this Saturday, the 15th of July. We took a look at the sides competing in Pool A, and will now turn to Pool B and their four teams. Pool B is made up of Hong Kong, Kenya, Samoa, and Spain.

While the 2023 Under 20s Championship is taking place in South Africa, eight teams are gearing up for the Under 20s Trophy in Zimbabwe. The teams will be divided into two pools of four and will play four matches each, three pool and one knockout match with seeding determined by the group stage. The winning team will get promotion to the Championship for next year, and every team will be vying for that spot. We’ll be taking a look at Pool A this week.

In a recent joint announcement the Six Nations and Rugby Championship national unions confirmed that the proposed World League would be going ahead starting in 2026. The tournament will run every two years, between World Cups and Lions Tours, and will replace June and November internationals for those years. There will be twelve teams, the Six Nations and Championship teams plus two unions that will receive invitations to join SANZAAR (likely Fiji and Japan).

2023 marks the first Under 20s Championship since 2019, the subsequent events having been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and fans are eager to once again see the youth players of their nations on the biggest stage. There are 12 teams that will be competing for the Championship, spilt into 3 pools of 4. We’ll be taking a look at the different teams ahead of the first match on June 24th in South Africa.

We’re onto the final pool now, we’ve looked at Pools A and B the last two weeks, and the Championship is right around the corner. Pool C contains an interesting and diverse group of Argentina, Georgia, Italy, and South Africa.

2023 marks the first Under 20s Championship since 2019, the subsequent events having been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and fans are eager to once again see the youth players of their nations on the biggest stage. There are 12 teams that will be competing for the Championship, spilt into 3 pools of 4. We’ll be taking a look at the different teams ahead of the first match on June 24th in South Africa.

Last week we took a deeper look at Pool A, this week we will dissect the teams that make up Pool B. The Pool is made up of a well rounded group of Australia, England, Fiji, and Ireland.

2023 marks the first Under 20s Championship since 2019, the subsequent events having been cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and fans are eager to once again see the youth players of their nations on the biggest stage. There are 12 teams that will be competing for the Championship, spilt into 3 pools of 4. We’ll be taking a look at the different teams ahead of the first match on June 24th in South Africa.

This week we’ll look at the teams comprising Pool A; France, Japan, New Zealand, and Wales.

While there might not be a traditional ‘Pool of Death’ in this year’s Rugby World Cup, where multiple high ranking teams fight for two quarterfinal spots, there will be an equally, if not more, exciting pool. Pool C will have Australia (6th World Ranking, 81.80 points), Wales (9th, 78.08), Georgia (13th, 76.23) Fiji (14th, 74.84), and Portugal (16th, 67.62). The top and bottom ranked teams in Pool C only have a position difference of 10 spots, whereas Pool A the difference is 19 (2 vs 21), Pool B is 18 (1 vs 19), and Pool D is 16 (6 vs 22).

With the creation of Major League Rugby, a lot of hope spawned for the future of USA Rugby. The competition would allow for a significant increase in high level training and match time for the best American players not contracted to overseas clubs... While in the short term the jump from amateur to professional should be of great benefit to the current crop of pros, the real prize will be the academies that MLR teams have been creating.

In June 2022 we posted an article discussing the improvement of Italy and their recent win over Wales to finish off the 2022 Six Nations on a high note, as well as their growing staple of young exciting talent and recent age grade success. Well Italy went out and gave a great display in the Autumn Nations Tournament last year.

The 2018 season was probably the greatest season USA Rugby has ever had. The MLR had just been created, the Eagles won the Americas Rugby Championship, defeated both Scotland and Samoa for the first ever and finished the season ranked 12th in the world. The US finished the year 10-2, only losing to Ireland and the Maori All Blacks, coming away with a margin of 366 points scored to 262 conceded.

You would be hard pressed to find many that dislike the additions of Moana Pasifika and Fijian Drua to Super Rugby Pacific. While the teams may have finished 11th and 12th in their first season, they were entertaining and competitive for the majority of their games.

Much has been said of Italy since they joined the Six Nations twenty-two years ago, most of which has been very negative. Recently, Italy won their final match of the 2022 season against Wales to end a 36-match losing streak. When looking at Italy’s history in the Six Nations, it is very understandable that many have called for their expulsion and even their replacement by other teams, the most prominent choice being Georgia.