USA Eagles soar to Russian rout

AJ MacGinty slotted five penalty goals and converted the Eagles' lone try in the victory, the seventh in seven match-ups between the world superpowers. Todd Clever nearly had two tries of his own in his record-breaking 68th appearance in the Eagles kit but the overall mood was not as jubilant after earning the victory.

"We stuck to raising the standard and performance this week and certainly didn't meet the expectations. We went backwards a bit this week and we'll have to find out why. The positive was we 'nilled' them.

"We've made some strides this assembly in terms of identity; just need to improve some components of the game," head coach John Mitchell said.

Both teams went into the match coming off of losses – the Eagles nearly upsetting Tier One Italy and Russia suffering a heavy-handed defeat to Canada. If they wanted to start on the front foot, neither found it in the early goings of the first half.

Several knocks and penalties kept either team from pleasing the crowd with "champagne" rugby, but the Eagles came out with territorial advantage more often than not. Cousins James King and Tony Lamborn proved instrumental in their second caps for the United States by winning ball at the breakdowns and giving the team go-forward runs.

As much as penalties stemmed several US attacks from reaching the try line, the calls against Russia were the only infractions punished on the scoreboard. Lamborn played a neat one-two with center Thretton Palamo in the 10th minute to draw a penalty, which was finally awarded after a few phases for MacGinty to slot his first three-point kick.

He doubled the advantage following a successive offside call against Russia four minutes later, and the Eagles pushed for a try.

Te'o's run down the wing in the 16th minute turned into a knock, but Cam Dolan blocked an attempted clearance kick along the try line a minute later, forcing Russia into a shorter kick into touch. The lineout came to nothing however, after the ball slipped out of James Hilterbrand's hands as he dove over the try line.

MacGinty added penalty goals in the 28th and 36th minutes before one final attack set up his tee along the touch line. The flyhalf knocked the ball between the uprights with ease to send the teams into the half at 15-0.

Despite turnover ball benefiting both sides in open play, Russia's attacks were mostly kept to breakouts from captain Vasily Artemyev or kicks behind the rushing US defense. It happened in the first minute of the second half, only for Artemyev's team mates to throw away possession with a longer kick into the try zone.

The scoring frustration continued through the 48th minute yellow card to lock Andrei Garbuzov, as the Eagles failed to turn the advantage into points. Not long after the forward was released from the bin, Clever sent captain Blaine Scully away along the wing near Russia's 10 metre line.

Scully took on substitute Alexey Shcherban with the dive over the try line but the Russian coming out the victor, holding up the Eagle. With the summer California heat taking its toll, Mitchell emptied the bench in the second half, with Langilangi Haupeakui, Harry Higgins, and Stephen Tomasin making their debuts.

Haupeakui immediately threw his weight around on defense, and helped to set up a try-scoring play in the 65th minute with a brick-wall run through two defenders across the 22. MacGinty continued the attack with a dummy before offloading to Te'o on the inside.

The starting wing fended one tackler and kept out of the reach of another to dive over for his third career try and a 23-0 score before MacGinty added the extras.

The Eagles did their best to end the Summer Series with at least a second try, even playing beyond the full-time horn. They came up somewhat empty handed, finishing off the match at 25-0.

Though the performance was not up to the standard the coaching staff or players would have wanted, it was a victory in shut-out fashion. There will be time to reconvene before the team meets the Maori All Blacks in Chicago.

"I think we have a lot more left in us, and this is a marker of where we are in our trajectory of constantly getting better. I think we improved in areas and have things to work on in other areas. The challenge is to stay disciplined in our systems and structure," Scully said.

Scorers:

For USA:

Try: Te'o

Con: McGintey

Pens: McGintey 6

For Russia: None

Teams:

United States: 15 Will Holder, 14 Mike Te'o, 13 Thretton Palamo, 12 Shalom Suniula, 11 Blaine Scully (captain), 10 AJ MacGinty, 9 Nate Augspurger, 8 Cam Dolan, 7 Tony Lamborn, 6 Todd Clever, 5 Nate Brakeley, 4 James King, 3 Chris Baumann, 2 James Hilterbrand, 1 Titi Lamositele.

Replacements: 16 Joe Taufete'e, 17 Ben Tarr, 18 Angus MacLellan, 19 Harry Higgins, 20 Langilangi Haupeakui, 21 Stephen Tomasin, 22 Chad London, 23 Luke Hume.

Russia: 15 Ramil Gaisin, 14 Denis Simplikevich, 13 Kirill Golosnitskiy, 12 Dmitry Gerasimov, 11 Vasily Artemyev (captain), 10 Yury Kushnarev, 9 Rushan Iagudin, 8 Anton Rudoi, 7 Pavel Butenko, 6 Viktor Gresev, 5 Denis Antonov, 4 Andrei Garbuzov, 3 Evgeny Pronenko, 2 Evgeny Matveev, 1 Alexey Volkov.

Replacements: 16 Nazir Gasanov, 17 Azamat Bitiev, 18 Vladimir Podrezov, 19 Evgeny Elgin, 20 Danila Chegodaev, 21 Alexey Shcherban, 22 Evgeny Kolomiitsev, 23 Anton Ryabov.

Referee: Matthew Carley (England)

Assistant referees: Marius van der Westhuizen (South Africa), Chris Assmus (Canada)

TMO: Graham Hughes (England)

@USARugby