Americas Rugby News Rugby news from across the Americas!
Following the completion of the professional rugby season attention is now on test match rugby. For the USA Eagles this means the Rugby World Cup 2023 qualifiers. The USA will face Chile home-and-away to determine who goes to France 2023 as Americas 2. The Eagles prepare for that series with a home match against the French Barbarians on Friday.
The match is the first of a kind. Never before have the USA Eagles met the French Barbarians. It is a game to bring the season to and end for the French players. This means that some exciting rugby is expected.
USA coach Gary Gold welcomes back captain AJ MacGinty. He returns after having missed out on facing Uruguay in RWC qualifiers in October, 2021. MacGinty is joined by fellow English Premiership players Greg Peterson, Ruben de Haas and Kapeli Pifeleti in the starting line-up. French champion Titi Lamositele misses out to receive much needed rest.
The team named is certainly one that could play in a RWC match. There are noteworthy names across the line-up. MacGinty and de Haas are an accomplished halves duo. Outside MacGinty at inside will be another who has been Eagles captain, Bryce Campbell.
The French Barbarians will go in to the match as favorites. The team is stacked with players from big name French teams. Included are capped players such as Nans Ducuing, Louis Picamoles, Jefferson Poirot, and François Trinh-Duc. The fixture will be a farewell for Picamoles and Trinh-Duc, two players to have played in World Cups.
The match will serve the Eagles well. The individual players are up against reputable names in all positions. The team is also against a side that will ask a lot of the USA both on defense and attack. This is a challenging but ideal warm-up match for the Eagles’ before their series against Chile.
TEAMS
USA
1 David Ainu’u, 2 Kapeli Pifeleti, 3 Paul Mullen, 4 Nick Civetta, 5 Greg Peterson, 6 Hanco Germishuys, 7 Moni Tonga’uiha, 8 Cam Dolan, 9 Ruben de Haas, 10 AJ MacGinty (capt.), 11 Mitch Wilson, 12 Bryce Campbell, 13 Tavite Lopeti, 14 Christian Dyer, 15 Marcel Brache
Replacements: 16 Mikey Sosene-Feagai, 17 Chance Wenglewski, 18 Joe Taufete’e, 19 Siaosi Mahoni, 20 Ben Bonasso, 21 Nate Augspurger, 22 Paul Lasike, 23 Luke Carty
FRENCH BARBARIANS
1 Jefferson Poirot, 2 Clément Maynadier, 3 Nicolas Corato, 4 Romain Sazy (capt.), 5 Jimi Maximin, 6 Esteban Abadie, 7 Alexandre Roumat, 8 Louis Picamoles, 9 Thomas Berjon, 10 François Trinh-Duc, 11 Mathieu Acebes, 12 Pierre Aguillon, 13 Jean-Baptiste Dubié, 14 Adrien Lapègue, 15 Nans Ducuing
Replacements: 16 Adrien Pélissié, 17 Sébastien Taofifenua, 18 William Wavrin, 19 Anthime Hemery, 20 Samuel Marques, 21 Louis Foursans, 22 Raphaël Lagarde, 23 Arthur Joly
Date: Friday, July 01
Kickoff: 19:30 local (17:30 Pacific, 20:30 Eastern)
Venue: AVEVA Stadium, Houston, Texas, (US)
Referee: Adam Jones (Wales)
Assistant Referees: Francisco Gonzalez (Uruguay); Peter Pender (Canada)
TMO: Andrew Hosie (Canada)
HISTORICAL RESULTS
N/A
