United States Rugby

In 2012, the USA Rugby AIG Men's Junior All-Americans won the IRB World Junior Rugby Trophy in a competition designed as a development tool for the world's tier 2 rugby nations. 

As a reward for their first-ever tournament victory—and the first by any North American nation—the Americans were promoted to the IRB's Junior World Championships, where, in a few weeks' time, they will compete against the very best under-20 teams on the planet.

The victory on home soil, in Salt Lake City, Utah, represented what USA Rugby's high performance player development manager Luke Gross called "one of the finest performances by a USA Rugby national team, at any level."

That accomplishment has now earned America the right to send 30 of its brightest rugby prospects to compete against the best on an annual basis. If this year's version of the Junior All-Americans can avoid relegation and continue the positive trend, this type of world-class exposure could have a huge impact on the future of the American men's national team.

But how was this all accomplished? Other developing rugby nations with big dreams of their own would do well to study the American experience.

The IRB World Junior Trophy has been around since 2008, and—other than Uruguay's victory at the inaugural tournament—no team from the Americas has managed to win promotion.

Gross believes that the answer lies in their system of talent identification and team preparation, which is now beginning to harness America's wealth of athletic talent in ever-increasing numbers.

"Our Coach last year was Scott Lawrence from Life University, who did an outstanding job. We started with two talent identification camps; one in the East of the country and one in the West. Those camps allowed us to take a really good look at over 100 players, all of whom had been previously scouted by our talent identification teams. It's never perfect, but we felt we had a really good grip on where the talent was on both the East and West coasts."

The talent identification process has traditionally been one of the biggest hurdles for developing rugby players in North America, due to huge geographical distances and limited travel budgets. By developing a network of scouts across the country, Gross and his team were able to assemble a strong team for the next stage of their program.

"From there, we brought 45 players down to a six-day filtering camp at an Olympic training centre in Southern California, where we developed our main player pool. These players were quickly sorted into a first and a development tier. The group was supplemented by a small group of American players living abroad, and subsequently went to British Columbia for a two-game series against the Canadian U20's."

The 2012 version of the exhibition series described by Gross was the first big success for a group of players that would go on to accomplish big things together. Their back-to-back victories over Canada opened the eyes of the USA coaches, who subsequently pulled out all the stops to ensure they had as much contact time with their players as possible.

"Both our forwards and our backs coaches are located in Colorado, albeit in different cities. We extended an invitation to all of the players to move themselves to that area for the months leading up to the tournament; those that chose to do so were boarded with local men's teams. Those players were afforded big opportunities to train rugby full time, as well as enhance their strength and conditioning."

Unlike England, Wales and the rest of Europe's rugby hotbeds, rugby for North Americans is still an amateur pursuit, especially at the under-20 level. Only a handful of players are ever given the opportunity to make rugby their sole occupation, but now the Junior All-Americans would arrive at the 2012 tournament with a core of players who had been doing exactly that.

But that was not the end of the team's preparations, as Gross went on to explain.  

"The final group of selected players lived for one week in a large house in Steamboat Spring Colorado, the week prior to the tournament. The players were involved in intense training and final team preparations but also cooked and cleaned together and partook in dozens of team-building activities that helped solidify that group."

Is there any doubt then that the 2012 version of the USA Junior All-Americans arrived at the IRB World Junior Trophy with big dreams and vastly improved skills?

The same assembly-line system has been used in 2013 in order to prepare and select the team that will compete in France at the IRB World Junior Championships against the world's best young ruggers. That tournament opens on June 5. If the USA Rugby factory can repeat its performance from last year, America should be well placed to remain the world's elite group for years to come.

But what of the other teams aspiring to one day follow the USA into the World Junior Championships?

This year's Junior World Trophy takes place in Chile, beginning on May 28. 

The tournament will feature, as its front-runner, a recently demoted Italian team that fought Ireland to a draw in the 2013 RBS U20 Six Nations. Defeating such an experienced team will be an enormous challenge; however, if Italy's opposition can replicate the success enjoyed by an increasingly competitive USA Rugby program, an upset might just be there for the taking.

If the USA's 2012 World Trophy win proves anything, it's that preparation is the key to success at a world junior tournament. 

Those who dream of holding the trophy high in 2013 have two weeks left before they see where their own hard work will rank them.

Jeff Hull is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report.

Unless otherwise stated, all quoted material in this story was obtained first-hand. 

Follow the author on Twitter by clicking on the link below.

Follow @RugbyScribe

Having eliminated the possibility of European rugby expanding to North America in my February interview with RaboDirect Pro 12 Director David Jordan, I sat down in March to talk with SANZAR's CEO Greg Peters to discuss his organization's plans concerning possible entry into the Americas. 

Mr Peters was clear that one of the important pre-requisites for such expansion would be the establishment of second- and third-tier competitions, which would develop the necessary talent across countries like Canada and the United States.

"We have found that for Super Rugby teams to be successful, you often need a third-tier competition like the Currie Cup in South Africa or the ITM Cup in New Zealand."

Such competitions are not entirely absent from the rugby scene in the Americas, as the Americas Rugby Championship (ARC) has repeatedly demonstrated.

But where can elite players in the Americas go to find high performance opportunities at a sub-national level?  Competitions like the Currie Cup, remember, are generally between regional representative teams, not national sides. 

Here too there is a working model already in place. 

In Canada, the Canadian Rugby Championship (CRC) has seen that country's four rugby regions compete against each other in a five-game round-robin tournament; a format that has seen numerous athletes identified and elevated to the national team.

In South America the The Confederación Sudamericana de Rugby (CONSUR) has been another effective development pathway; one which sees Argentinian provinces squaring off against the national sides of smaller South American rugby nations.

In May of 2012, The Ontario Blues, the reigning CRC champions were sent on a tour of the CONSUR nations and teams in South America, in part, to test where the Canadian competition measured against their South Hemisphere counterparts. The results couldn't have been better for the future of rugby in the Americas. 

The Ontario provincial squad racked up hard-fought wins against the Uruguayan national team and Argentina's Salta Province, while dropping a razor-thin decision against Chile. 

The parity between North and South American regional sides was obviously there, but where in all this—you may ask—are teams from the United States?

The answer will, in part, be provided on May 4, when the Ontario Blues once again venture beyond Canada's borders to take on the famed New York Athletic Club (NYAC), on Travers Island in New York. 

The game is an effort to grant American players access to some of the same sub-national high performance opportunities that their Canadian colleagues have had access to over the last few years. 

If games like this become a regular occurrence, it has the potential to lead to the very thing that Super Rugby's Greg Peters called for in our previous interview; a high-performance developmental league that could feed players into future Super Rugby franchises in the Americas.

USA Eagles Head Coach and former NYAC Coach Mike Tolkin knows the type of opportunities these matches offer for players looking to move on to the next level.

Some of the premier teams in the country are continuously looking to challenge themselves, building on the success that they've already achieved here in the USA. With elite or national team players on these squads, the opportunity to play an increased number of high-level matches is essential. The Canadian teams in similar situation feel the same, so this is a great opportunity to provide these teams and players a higher platform to play upon. It also builds a bit more excitement to play these games due to the fact that they are cross-border matches and bring the rivalry factor into play. Clubs and high performance players from both countries gain valuable elite-level matches.

Since the restructuring of the USA Super League in 2012, clubs like NYAC have been searching for more elite competition, so on a continent where these largely elite amateur teams must often travel huge distances to play a single match, fixtures like the one scheduled for May 4 are a blessing to these committed athletes and coaches.

Mark Winokur, the longtime manager of the Ontario Blues—arguably the most successful regional side in the Americas—knows these dilemmas well, and is thrilled that such an opportunity is only a bus ride away.

In the regular CRC competition our closest adversaries are in St. John's, Newfoundland and Calgary Alberta; three hours away by plane. These matches against teams like New York Athletic Club are fantastic for our players.

Without these games, many of our elite athletes would have to rely on the competition they take part in with their university or men's club sides, which is not at the same standard. Games like this offer players a change to test themselves against unfamiliar opposition, many of whom will be on the national team depth charts in the United States.

Winokur isn't wrong. As can be seen from the team rosters that were provided to Bleacher Report, located at the bottom of this article, many of the players on each team are either on the radar of their respective national programs or have ambitions towards that end.

New York Head Coach Bruce McLane also knows the value of these matches, and believes that they have the potential to be just as competitive as some of the national teams games which are held at tournaments like the Americas Rugby Championship.

The ARC is an important tournament, but there, the players must assemble quickly from all around the country and have limited practice time together before they head into games against other national sides. In matches like the one we have planned against the Ontario Blues, the teams will have more cohesion and confidence because they will have trained together over long periods of time, and will be more familiar with their teammates and team systems.

I have always enjoyed the way the Canadians have approached the game of rugby. I enjoy playing against them and testing our rugby against theirs. I know that this match will be an excellent opportunity to do that.

When Coach McLane speaks of his admiration for the Canadian rugby community, one has to believe that he is speaking—at least in part—of the success of their domestic rugby development systems and the Canadian Rugby Championship. 

If teams like New York Athletic Club were to one day find themselves in an expanded version of that tournament, one which truly allowed for regional teams from across North and South America to compete annually against each other, it might not be long before Super Rugby and its enormous commercial machine followed in its wake.

The match between the reigning CRC Champion Ontario Blues and the reigning Super Elite Cup Champion New York Athletic Club is scheduled for a 3pm kickoff on Saturday, May 4,  on Travers Island, New York.

Ontario Blues Team Roster:   (Club / Highest Level)

FORWARDS - Creag Johnston (Scottish / Canada A), JT Rowbotham (Lindsay), Tom Dolezel (London / Canada), Nick Dewland (Ottawa Indians), Henry Mcqueen (Beach), Jacob Rumball (Beach / Canada A), Haddon Murray (Beach), Alistair Clark (Pigs / Canada A), Cam Stones (Ajax / Canada U20), Seb Pearson (London / Canada A), Mike Sheppard (Brampton), Matt Kelly (Scottish), Rob Brouwer (Lindsay)

BACKS - Andrew Ferguson (Oakville / Canada U20), Rory Tomlinson (Barrie), Ryan Tomlinson (Barrie / Canada A), Derek Daypuck (London / Canada), Liam Underwood (Beach / Canada A), Jon West (Aurora / Canada U20), Dylan Mundy (Oshawa), Grant Schnieder (Oakville), Davor Stojanov (Creek)

New York Athletic Club Roster:  (Highest Level)

Al McFarland (Australia Schools), Brian Doyle (USA Eagles), Chris Chapman (USA Eagles Pool), Conor Coyne (USA Eagles Pool), Danny Grace (Munster U-20), Gideon Balloch (Eastern Ontario), James Denise (USA Eagles Pool), Justin Hundley (USA 7s), Kirk Hamilton (NYAC), Kyle Granby (NYAC), Manny Cipriani (Italian Super 10), Marvin Jean Baptiste (NYAC), Thomas Coolican (USA Eagles Pool), Neil McMillan (Ireland A), Nick Discala (NYAC), Pat Fiffe (NYAC), Phil Bailey (Australia Kangaroos - Rugby League), Phil Rowe (Connacht), Rob Johnson (USA U-20), Ryan Diehl (USA All-American), Sean Verma (NYAC), Seth Cohen (USA Maccabi), Toby L'Estrange (USA Eagles)

Jeff Hull is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise stated, all of the cited material was obtained first-hand.

Follow the author on Twitter: @RugbyScribe

The International Rugby Board Sevens Series has produced its fifth winner in as many tournaments, at the 2013 USA Sevens event in Las Vegas.

Our own Bleacher Report preview had talked about the unpredictability of the Series this season, but the Cup victory by South Africa at Sam Boyd Stadium made sure that the surprises continued to arrive in spades.

The three day event began with one of the more unexpected and astounding collapses in the history of the circuit, as England—the team that had hoisted the Cup only days ago in New Zealand—was relegated to the Bowl competition.

There, with approximately the same roster that stood on the winner's podium in Wellington, England was ingloriously routed by France by a score of 40 - 7.

With the majority of the series stops already complete, the English now sit in 9th place; a standing that would have seemed unfathomable to most observers last summer.

If the Las Vegas event was difficult to endure for England, it was a glorious moment for Canada; a team our own preview singled out for big possibilities.

Canada Coach Geraint John was forced to do without a key number of his regulars, as both Sean Duke and Phil Mack were out of the line-up due to injury, but still the Canadians pressed on. Defeating the then second-ranked Kenyans on Friday, Canada went on to best the United States and Scotland on Sunday to take home the USA Sevens Plate.

It was one of their best finishes in Series history.

Two Pacific Island nations—Samoa and Fiji—met each other in the third place game, with Samoa earning the win and the 17 Series points that went with it. A look a the IRB standings following the weekend's actions sees Samoa five points ahead of their Fijian rivals, with both teams holding one tournament victory this season.

South Africa's win may seem like a terrible moment for New Zealand. Indeed, the 40 - 21 Cup final defeat was a poor performance by the Kiwis and vaulted the South Africans into second place in the competition's rankings; however, the all-important math is begging to accumulate.

Even though New Zealand—no doubt like so may of last weekend's tourists—may have come up short in Las Vegas, they are now superbly positioned to take home yet another IRB Sevens Series crown.

Taking home 19 Series points from the USA Sevens, New Zealand now have a seemingly insurmountable 23 point lead in the standings. At this point, the New Zealanders need only finish in the top-four at each of the remaining tournaments to clinch victory; something they have done consistently throughout each of the first five IRB Series stops. 

The IRB Sevens Series now moves on to its sixth leg, in Hong Kong, on March 22nd.

USA Sevens Results:

Cup Final: New Zealand 21 - South Africa 40

3rd Place Game: Fiji 31 - Samoa 36

Plate Final: Scotland 5 - Canada 22

Bowl Final: Argentina 12 - France 17

Shield Final: Uruguay 0 - Australia 41

Click here to see the current IRB Series standings.

Jeff Hull is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. To follow the author on Twitter click on the link below.

Follow @RugbyScribe

Rugby union recently made headlines in North America when the Head of SANZAR, Greg Peters, commented publicly that his organization was weighing possible expansion of the Super 15 professional rugby competition to North America.

We are considering whether or not we will include new territories in Super Rugby and one of the factors we’ll be weighing up is their competitiveness.

Super Rugby in its present form is a pretty successful model … and we are not going to water it down. But we’d be derelict in our duty if we didn’t consider expanding into areas. The United States is a very big market and so is Japan and Asia generally. Ultimately it all comes down to what is in the best interests of the three SANZAR parties.

SANZAR is an alliance between South African, Australian and New Zealand rugby, and between them they run the southern hemisphere's two biggest rugby competitions; The Rugby Championship for international teams and the Super 15 as the hemisphere's elite professional competition.

Peters' comments in The Australian obviously created a great deal of excitement in world rugby, but left one very important question on the table.

If SANZAR was pondering a possible expansion to North America, what interest, if any, was there in such a move on the part of European leagues?

One league in particular, the RaboDirect Pro12, had already broken out of its traditional boundaries in the Celtic Nations of Scotland, Ireland and Wales and had expanded to Italy.

Is the idea of further North American expansion for the RaboDirect Pro 12 a realistic possibility?

To find out, we contacted the competition's Tournament Director Mr. David Jordan, who was generous enough to discuss the matter here, in this Bleacher Report exclusive.

That Mr. Jordan's league is highly successful both on and off the pitch is not in dispute. The PRO12 currently comprises a dozen teams spread across four independent rugby nations, nations which have begun to see the attendance of their pro teams rise substantially in recent years. He said of the league:

The PRO12 has provided all our clubs with a stable tournament in which to operate, with regular weekly matches. ERC’s tournament provides three premium home ties but this is not what sustains our clubs, it is the 11 home PRO12 matches that do that.

It is the PRO12 that provides our teams with a stable and sustainable season that has allowed many of our clubs to develop new stadia and to grow their audiences to the extent that Leinster can take Munster to the Aviva Stadium and command a crowd of 48,000 - also this season the Welsh Regions will be playing a round of PRO 12 matches as a double header in the Millennium Stadium, while hoping to get a crowd of in excess of 40,000.

We are just beyond the mid-point of our season and already our attendances across the PR012 are some 8% ahead of last season and we are on track to break the millionth fan going through our gates before the start of our play-off rounds. In terms of TV we now have seven live TV partners and some 85% of our matches are on TV. Our TV audience for this season will be well in excess of 12m viewers by the time we come to our play-off rounds and the growing world-wide interest in our tournament is such that it is now seen in over 85 countries.

This success has followed closely on the heels of the league's last expansion within Europe.

In the 2010-11 season the competition that had been previously known as the Magners League, began its first year with Italian participation; a moment of huge importance for the future of European rugby. Italy has since gone on to beat France in the past two RBS Six Nations campaigns, a development Mr. Jordan attributes to that expansion move:

As you rightly point out Celtic Rugby expanded its professional rugby union tournament to incorporate Italy three seasons ago.

The rationale behind this expansion was a recognition that Italy needed to be part of a competitive professional rugby environment in order to ensure that Italian Rugby, which participated in 6 Nations and European competition, remained competitive.

For example in 6 Nations, if Italy’s domestic rugby playing environment wasn’t sufficiently good enough to provide the Italian international team with quality players then it would be forever propping up the 6 Nations table and that would not be good competitively or commercially for the international game in Europe. It was clear that Italy ought to adopt the regional team model operated by the Celtic Nations, and so concentrate their better players into elite teams, rather than have their players spread across a semi-professional domestic league of 10 clubs.

Having agreed upon this strategy it was also obvious that if Italy adopted a regional team model it would be better if those teams played alongside the regional clubs of Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The invitation for Italy to participate in the PRO12 was therefore more of a rugby decision than a commercial decision.

The lessons of this experience with Italy seem clear; the arrival of professional rugby to a developing nation can rapidly increase their competitiveness on the international stage. Surely, this is an example that North American unions would love to follow.

So what are the prospects of the RaboDirect Pro 12 making its way across the Atlantic?

In terms of further expansion, Celtic Rugby is somewhat constrained by the structure of the season in the Northern Hemisphere. Unlike our Southern counterparts the professional and international season in Europe is intertwined with club tournaments, international tournaments and tours. 

Our season is 40 weeks long, starting in September and ending in May. The PRO12 operates over 24 weekends, European-wide competition 9 weekends, the RBS Six Nations has 5 weekends, and there are 3 weekends for the November Tests. That is 44 weekends. To enable this all to happen, the PRO12 plays a few rounds on international weekends. The Welsh teams also play in the Anglo-Welsh Cup, which is played during SIx Nations.

As such, we do not have the capacity to add more teams as there aren't the weekends to cope with that. As you are probably aware our clubs service four international teams, as well as "A" Sides and U20 sides. Our teams don’t have the player base to play anymore matches during internationals without reducing those teams to development sides for part of the season, and that is not commercially attractive.

Though depressing to North American fans, Mr. Jordan's point is well taken. The most recent expansion of the playing schedule for any of the Celtic Nations, the LV Anglo-Welsh Cup, has largely seen its matches become developing grounds a club's young talent; as most established international players are away on Six Nations duty.

When one stops to consider the myriad of non-league commitments that clubs in the RaboDirect Pro 12 have to contribute to, either in whole or in part, it is rather amazing that the competition continues to produce such a high standard of elite rugby.

Mr. Jordan did leave the door open to a more limited presence for his league overseas, but suggested that it was likely to take the form of one-off exhibition events.

If such a thing were to happen it would more likely be to play a match in a particular place just as Aviva Premiership side Saracens have attempted to do recently. The numbers would have to work of course, and be sufficiently up-weighted to counter the negative impact that comes from alienating your own fans by playing a home match somewhere else.

As already noted, expansion of the PRO12 tournament to add more teams from other countries is restricted by the structure of the season in Europe. In addition some of our own Unions may wish to increase the number of their professional sides should space allow rather than seek entrants from elsewhere.

And with that, North American fans who wonder if European rugby will ever come to their shores have their answer. 

The RaboDirect Pro 12 is the one European competition not specifically tied to the interests of a single national union, unlike the national premierships in both England and France. So, as David Jordan and his league look to consolidate their position in Europe, North Americans seeking their own professional teams remain on the outside looking in.

Still, Mr. Jordan's positive work in Europe does hold important lessons for the North American audience. The inclusion of Italy within the ranks of true professionalism has clearly produced a rapid improvement in the quality of their performances internationally.

However, unlike Italy, who found their way into a professional competition based on their existing ties with other European nations, North Americans remain geographically isolated with relatively little leverage.

The one great pull factor, which might one day yet make professional rugby a reality here remains the enormous commercial and media markets available in North America and specifically in the United States.

So, while the RaboDirect Pro 12 continues to attract increasingly massive crowds across the breadth of Europe, many hopeful North Americans will now turn their eyes back to the Super 15, where it appears the dreams of expansion to our shores may yet still live on.

Jeff Hull is a Featured Columnist at Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise stated, all quoted material was collected firsthand.

To follow the author on Twitter, click on the link below.

Follow @RugbyScribe 

The IRB Women's Rugby circuit began its first-ever stop in the United States on Friday, as the Houston Sevens kicked off at BBVA Compass Stadium.

England, the team that topped the world rankings last year, having claimed two out of three tournament wins during the 2011-12 season, arrived in Texas with their strongest team, including inspirational World Cup flanker Heather Fisher.

The plan from the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) was to send the vast majority of their women's talent to Houston, despite the fact that their XV's team is busy defending their RBS Six Nations title back in Europe.

The reason for the decision was simple. The Houston Sevens represented that last opportunity to England to give themselves a rankings boost ahead of the IRB Sevens World Cup in Russia this coming June. 

The English women arrived in Texas on a mission for nothing less than victory, but how would they fare?

We bring you all of the action from Day One in Houston in this exclusive coverage on Bleacher Report.

Day One Results:

Pool A:

Teams: England, New Zealand, The Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago

In what was unquestionably the toughest pool in the tournament, England and New Zealand both beat a determined Dutch side, leaving their head-to-head contest as the pool decider.

It was a brutal contest, with Fisher putting in huge hits on behalf of the England women. England held a 7-0 lead for most of the match off a try from Natasha Hunt before New Zealand's Black Ferns responded with a try of their own as the clock went dead.

The all-important conversion point was missed, however, leaving England to top their pool and claim a Cup quarterfinal matchup against the Netherlands on Saturday.

Pool B: 

Teams: Canada, U.S., South Africa, Argentina

The most telling match in this pool came early in the day, as Canada and the U.S. battled to a 12-12 draw. That result meant that the pool standings were destined to come down to points differential. 

In the end, the Americans squeaked into first place in their pool and have drawn a physical and talented Russian squad on Day Two. 

Not much of a reward.

Canada, on the other hand, has drawn New Zealand in their own Cup quarterfinal contest.

Pool C:

Teams: Australia, Russia, Japan, Brazil

Australia can attest to how physical the Russians are, as they were just able to squeak by them by a score of 15-10. That result, in what was probably the most predictable pool, would see them finish first overall on Day One in Houston, giving them a draw against the South African women on Saturday.

All To Play For On Super Saturday

The Cup quarterfinal draw sees what most would agree are the top eight teams in the tournament square off in pursuit of the first ever Houston Sevens title and valuable IRB rankings points.

The winning team will need to produce three consecutive winning performances to emerge victorious and do so against opposition that will only grow more fierce as the day goes on.

It truly looks to be a super Saturday in Houston. 

Check back here on Bleacher Report for a complete rundown on the final tournament results.

Matchups on Day Two:

Cup Quarterfinals:

England vs. The Netherlands
Canada vs. New Zealand
U.S. vs. Russia
South Africa vs. Australia

Jeff Hull is a contributor to Bleacher Report. Catch him on Twitter: @RugbyScribe

Rugby union professionals, in the modern era, are recipients of some of the best coaching and sports science in the history of athletic pursuits, and there are few phrases used as much in modern rugby coaching as "10,000 hours of mastery."

The saying comes down to us from the psychologist Anders Ericsson and was most recently examined by Malcom Gladwell, in his book Outliers. 

One of the most important and fascinating parts of Gladwell's research, which focused on different groups of people who had reached the peak of their professions, was his findings in regards to pro athletes in the sport of ice hockey.

Gladwell discovered that Canadian hockey players born in the first few months of the year, were far more likely to become professional players than the rest of their peers.

The logic was that players born early in the year were likely to be more physically mature than other boys at various stages in their childhood and therefore more likely to be identified as more athletically gifted.

This, in turn, caused these players to receive more hours of elite coaching and attention. These are the players that went on to benefit from Ericsson's 10,000 hour theory and subsequently become professionals.

If only the issues around pursuing a professional rugby career were so simple. 

For ambitious North American rugby players, the very idea that they could accumulate such hours of training so early in life seems highly improbable. For starters, rugby leagues for the very young are a relatively new phenomenon for North Americans, and today's young adults with professional aspirations are likely to have only been in the game for a comparative handful of seasons. 

European national unions, as well as their associated professional clubs, all have youth development programs which are specifically designed to identify, acquire and train promising young talent in England, Ireland, Wales and elsewhere.

So where then is a player like the USA's Eric Fry to turn?

The 25-year-old California native had been trying earn a full-time professional contract for some time, after breaking in to the American national team as a prop in 2010. Its a challenge for any athlete born in North America, as European pro clubs have their own depth charts of local talent that flow all the way down to local youth rugby.

Recently, the powerful front-row forward was able to sign-on with London Scottish of the R.F.U. Championship; a club in the second-tier of professional English rugby. He said:

It is a difficult process for North Americans to sign contracts overseas.  This is my second overseas contract. My first being for the Manawatu Turbos in New Zealand.  One of the difficulties is that we are competing for spots with players who have been playing as a professional for some time, or against young players who have been identified as having potential and been put into an academy program.

Domestically, in North America, there are no professional leagues nor is there a way for us to play and train at a level as high as our full-time European counterparts. One of our opportunities to showcase our abilities is in international tests. However, there are only a few of those a year, and we often don't have as much time to prepare for them as we'd like.

Fry is one of the lucky ones. The lack of a professional league in North America means that, often, North American athletes are forced to try and find innovative ways of displaying their talents for professional scouts and managers. Its a strategy that can come with a lot of risks.

Another option which is much more of a gamble is to prove yourself at the amateur level in a country with a professional league. Last February, I quit my job and moved to New Zealand to train full time in a competitive rugby environment. I was hoping that my time in New Zealand would help develop me as a player and as a scrummager and that it would add to my credibility and make me less of a risky investment to professional team. I was extremely fortunate that.

Being a full time player in the ITM Cup grew my game a lot and gave me game footage to prove that I could benefit a professional team in another part of the world.   With this experience I played better in my next international tour with the US team. Without it, I don't think I would have won a contract with London Scottish.   

Fry is correct that his gamble paid off. The entire purpose RFU Championship is to push talent up into the ranks of the English Aviva Premiership, where the truly big money contracts can be found.

Players with London Scottish are offered far more meagre wages, with some clubs in the league still occasionally fielding purely amateur players.

One of Fry's new teammates is Canadian international lock forward Tyler Hotson. Hotson joined London Scottish this season and has already played several seasons in England; he is a veteran who truly appreciates the opportunity to earn a living playing the sport he loves. He added:

It's a massive opportunity to play over here. This league continues to improve and it can be so physical; even more than Premiership games, depending on the day.   

As far as the quality of the RFU Championship is concerned, I can completely attest to it. It's so important to get guys over here and out of their comfort zones, and obviously it’s worked out really well for me in a positive way. The more guys we can get over here playing somewhere, the better.

Hotson's hopes for more Canadians joining him overseas, a hope that is no doubt shared by Eric Fry and the Team USA management, will be difficult to realize. As Fry explains, the system is currently stacked against players from across the Atlantic.

Another hurdle North Americans face is that clubs have to sponsor us for a work visa which can be an difficult, expensive and timely process. Additionally, in most professional leagues there are restrictions on the number of overseas players. Furthermore, it is my understanding that some teams have financial incentives if they average a certain amount of players who are eligible to play for their affiliated national team.  

Recently, news became public that the Super 15, the southern hemisphere's premier professional rugby competition, is pondering the idea of expansion to North America. Rugby communities across the continent rejoiced at this development.  

For with the arrival of a truly professional league in both Canada and the United States would also come the resources necessary to identify talent at a younger age and unleash the vast potential that the North American athlete pool holds.

Surely then the world rugby community will stand up and take notice.

If players like Eric Fry and Tyler Hotson can be moulded into rugby machines of their caliber in a little under a decade, one shutters at the thought of what might be possible when the next generation of North American boys and girls start off much earlier, in search of their own 10,000 hours of rugby.

Jeff Hull is a contributor to Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise stated, all of the above quotations were obtained first-hand.

Follow Jeff on Twitter: @RugbyScribe

Now before I became a featured columnist for Bleacher Report, I was a webmaster for Long Beach State's rugby team, which played Division I ball at the time before they dropped to Division II due to poor quality. I asked the manager of that team what he thought of the University of California and he declared that they were garbage. I figured that was out of jealousy because when it comes to XVs, the only team in America that can do it right is Cal.

So with that said, it's time for the USA to come to terms with the foregone conclusion that was dealt by a country that would most likely wipe the floor us in the world game, a code we're better at.

The USA simply sucks at rugby union. Yes, you heard it first. The United States of America will now have to qualify through the same old repechage with no marked improvements in its already-comatose game after losing to the Italians—of all teams—27 to 10 in Nelson, New Zealand.

Why is it that the USA is terrible at the code that spawned its own brand of football that requires helmets and pads, and has scores in the form of touchdowns rather than tries?

I mean, sure, the USA is investing in the sevens game with all the universities fielding a team in the inevitable reality that rugby sevens, the bastardized version of XVs, will be an NCAA sport in the next decade.

But even the likes of Kenya, whose association football team is just as good as the Philippines, if slightly better, can beat the USA in rugby sevens.

I think USA Rugby is not investing hard enough to make rugby union relevant in this country. I fearlessly predict that for the next century we will remain a Tier Two country, barring an act of God, also known as the worst decision imaginable by the International Rugby Board.

IRB, please do not promote USA Rugby to the likes of Tier One. They will be never be worthy of joining the echelon of a few countries that can actually play the game right.

Yes, a few. I mean, the only teams that can play decent rugby internationally are the Six Nations Teams, the Tri-Nations Teams which will become Four Nations when Argentina comes aboard, the Pacific Islands countries of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji, and both Japan and Canada. That's it.

The USA can't even beat Canada in rugby union on a frequent basis. It's pretty pathetic. And the Cherry Blossoms now have the Eagles' number, adding salt to the wounds of an already-suffering rugby fan base here in the States.

Forget about the already-meaningless victory over Russia. The Cold War ended ages ago. I am still confounded as to why the media even bring that up. Russia, like the USA, should not even have a rugby team. Stick to sports you're actually good at, like ice hockey and figure skating.

In conclusion, USA Rugby has proven to be a joke time and time again when it comes to competing at the Rugby World Cup, and it was more of the same on Tuesday night in Nelson.

And with the next Rugby World Cup coming to a country that doesn't even have a Tier One team in Japan, who would be a fool to think that will change?

The match ended as it began, with Russia's fist firmly in America's face.

Russia came out of the gates with vigour, and put up the game's first three points within the first minute on a converted penalty goal. Likewise, the Russians ended the match in American territory, looking for a game-tying try in what seemed to be a very long final 45 seconds.

It was all that happened in between, however, that gave the United States the 13-6 win over Russia.

For the entire match, the United States dominated possession and territory and seemed constantly on the verge of a game-clinching try.

Though the United States did improve on line-outs, as they knew they had to, winning 17 and even stealing a handful from the Russians, they will certainly be looking to improve on ball handling before their match with Australia on September 23rd.

The United States recorded 10 handling errors, three of which came from American speedster Takudzwa Ngwenya. Unfortunately for the United States, the handling errors all seemed to come within Russian territory and really kept the Eagles from cracking the lead open.

The only try of the game was scored by Brooklyn native Mike Petri at about the 19-minute mark coming off of multiple missed tackles by the Russians and three wonderful tosses by the United States.

All together, the Russians missed 20 tackles and that seems to be the defining stat of the match.

The speed and strength of the Americans allowed them to keep continuous pressure of the Russians and, in the end, Russia didn't have enough left in the tank for that final game-saving play.

The win over Russia is the first of the World Cup for the United States, but things will not be any easier for the Eagles who close out pool play with one match against Australia and one match against Italy.

As for Russia, they may have missed their only chance at a win, as their next three matches are against Italy, Ireland and Australia.

The meeting of the United States and Russia on the pitch in New Plymouth, New Zealand tomorrow may be more symbolic than anything else.

The history of American and Russian competition covers everything from hockey to basketball to boxing, even outer space. But never before have the two nations competed in rugby.

This is can partly be attributed to Russia having never competed in a World Cup Tournament.

The Russian squad is young and focused, and a strong showing for them against the Americans could plant the seed to grow into strong World Cup appearances in the future.

All of Russia will be watching to see how their boys do against an old, if friendly, rival.

The match carries a bit more weight for the United States. After losing to Ireland in an overall well fought and well played match for the Americans, the Eagles will need a win in order to keep any hopes at the quarterfinals alive.

The United States is in a good position at the moment.

Going into the match with Russia, they can draw from a good showing against Ireland, one of the world's best teams, and look forward to a long break before facing Australia on September 23.

Before they can celebrate a victory, the United States will need to improve their scrum, which was rolled over time and again against the Irish, as well as their line outs when they face Russia.

Meanwhile, Russia will try to compete and show the world they belong in the World Cup.

Prediction: With the weight of a nation on their shoulders the Russians will come up short against the more athletic and experienced Americans. The United States wins 25--10.