'No quarter': Blaine Scully leads USA against Canada as World Cup looms
Blaine Scully’s US Eagles watched Argentina v New Zealand last week in their team room in Colorado. The Pumas pushed the world champions all the way and the Americans were reminded, their captain says, that the World Cup in Japan in September “is gonna be a tough pull”.
In Pool C, the US will play England, France and Argentina before facing Tonga, the only team they might reasonably hope to beat.
That, however, is for later. First comes Canada in Glendale on Saturday, a first game of four this summer through which head coach Gary Gold will whittle down a pool of 50 men into 31 to go to Japan. Training has been competitive.
“We were in Colorado Springs for two weeks,” says Scully, down the phone, “and for the last two weeks we’ve been here in Glendale. And so we’ve had a pretty good block together. A lot of high-intensity fitness work, a lot of foundational work, building pieces we are going to need.”
Canada have achieved more at World Cups and results-wise the USA are still the junior partner in a rivalry that began in 1977. But in the last 10 Can-Am games, the Eagles have taken an unprecedented nine wins and a draw. Much of that has to do with American rugby professionalising faster, with hiccups of course, first in one year of PRO and now with two of Major League Rugby. A highly successful sevens operation means all home-based national players are paid to play, like those who go overseas.
Not counting sevens players Madison Hughes, Martin Iosefo and Ben Pinkelman, Scully, a wing or full-back, is the only man in the pre-World Cup squad currently lacking a club. He spent two years in England with Leicester and four in Wales with Cardiff before coming home this summer. He won’t be drawn on whether he’s headed for MLR any more than he will predict another win over Canada.
“It’s always a highly contested Test match,” he says. “When I was first involved, we didn’t win very often. We’ve been fortunate in the last year or two. The challenge for us this summer is that this is the best Canadian team we’ve played in a number of years because they’ve had some availability challenges. Now their best players are here.
“But it doesn’t matter who’s on the field, Canada versus USA means something. We are fully expecting a brutal Test, no quarter given by either side.”
Quite right. Every four years the World Cup comes around and teams gather their best players together. Canada, under the former Wales flanker Kingsley Jones, scraped into the draw via the repechage but they have a squad heavy with tournament experience.
Scully has been to two World Cups, in New Zealand in 2011 as a product of Cal Berkeley and in England four years later as a seasoned pro. Now he’s a veteran of eight games in two tournaments that have produced one win, against Russia eight years ago. There is a sense now that no American team has gone in stronger. The Eagles won nine times in 2018 including victory over Scotland in Houston, their first over a tier-one team. But there have been stumbles since and whichever way you look at it, the draw is pitilessly hard.
They will also be without a pitilessly hard player, the back-rower Samu Manoa, formerly of Northampton, Toulon and Cardiff. Now with the MLRchampion Seattle Seawolves he was named in Gold’s training squad but then announced his Test retirement. Five years ago, before another summer Test against the Scots, Scully told the Guardian how much Manoa would be missed. The same applies now.
“Obviously he had a hugely successful professional career overseas,” Scully says, “and everyone kind of makes those personal decisions whenever it’s best for them. We first and foremost want him to be happy and healthy. It’s unfortunate the timing didn’t work out from a Rugby World Cup point of view, but we’re grateful for his time that he spent with the Eagles.”
Over games against Canada, Samoa and Japan in the Pacific Nations Cup, then another Test against the Canadians, who fills the hole left by Manoa will be one subplot to watch. How the MLR players perform will be another. None will lack for motivation, particularly with three Premiership picks – Saracens prop Titi Lamositele, Worcester hooker Joe Taufete’e and Harlequins centre Paul Lasike – all coming back from injury. AJ MacGinty, the Sale fly-half, a vital cog in the machine, is fit.
“We’re obviously discussing the Rugby World Cup and everyone wants to be on that plane,” Scully says, asked to look ahead to kick-off against England in Kobe on 26 September. “But in order for us to be in a position to do that we need to be focused on our training and these matches in the PNC.”
“Certain elements of our game”, he adds, must be “rock solid and foundational”. Necessities for any minnow swimming with a big fish include a pack that can hold its ground and the best defence possible. In Scully’s first World Cup, ceaseless tackling held Ireland to 22-10 in New Plymouth. In London in his second, a 64-0 thumping by South Africa was much tougher going.
Head coach Gold is South African and so is defence coach Jaque Fourie, a World Cup-winning centre in 2007. Scully speaks highly of both.
Fourie, he says, has “a hugely successful pedigree as a player, and he’s got a great intensity, and he has the respect of everyone involved because he’s been there and done that in a lot of different ways. He’s helping us all get better.”
Canada versus USA means something. We are fully expecting a brutal Test, no quarter given