If it wasn’t outright unwise for the speakers at Audi Field to play the US Eagles and Scotland on to the field with Money for Nothing by Dire Straits, it was surely tempting fate.
The sizable crowd – 17,418 – which came down to the banks of the Anacostia on a sticky night paid its money and took its chances, sure. So did World Rugby, which put the game on. And the Eagles didn’t score nothing. But the Scots mostly took their own chances, and by and large the Americans did not, and the result was a procession that in the second half, at least, descended slowly into the swamp.
That said, American rugby cannot be said to be in dire straits. MLR, its men’s pro league, is finishing season seven, the women’s game is strong, the global governing body has grand ambitions for the 2031 and 2033 World Cups. This game was meant to be a start, not a means to an end.
After the final whistle the US coach, Scott Lawrence, told reporters: “Our mantra is always, ‘The score doesn’t matter, as long as we get better.’ We’re building towards something. We want to play inspirational. We want to inspire young players that want to be Eagles some day. And I think the players put it all out there.”
The big wing Duhan van der Merwe got the first Scottish try, slipping a tackle rather easily after five minutes of possession, the fly-half Adam Hastings turning down a kickable three points in search of the seven he got. A few minutes of American ball followed but also the first trickle of a stream of American penalties. Scotland advanced, the Eagles defence held and the hosts escaped upfield, only for their own fly-half, AJ MacGinty, to kick for three and miss. Then the Americans conceded another penalty, Hastings kicked to the corner, and after a scrappy lineout the hooker Ewan Ashman drove over. Again, Hastings converted.
The pattern repeated on 26 minutes, Ashman scoring again after another penalty, which this time produced a yellow card for the Eagles prop David Ainu’u, and another Hastings kick to the corner.
The Eagles did get a try. Their own kick-to-the-corner-and-drive didn’t work but the Scotland No 8, Matt Fagerson, came off a scrum, got himself rather splendidly clattered, and saw the ball spill loose. A couple of phases later the Eagles hurled their shock-haired centre, Tommaso Boni, over the Scotland line. The home supporters, most wearing colours of school, college or club, made their appreciation known. MacGinty made it 21-7.
It could’ve been 21-10, had the Eagles full-back Luke Carty’s 55-metre penalty not shaded left of the posts. As it was, after that miss the Eagles trapped themselves in their own 22 with a mix-up, Hastings kept kicking penalties to the corner, and after a lot of heaving and grunting, and prolonged official decision-making, Ashman plopped over for an extremely short-range hat-trick. Hastings made it 28-7 at half-time.
The Scotland scrum-half George Horne got the first try of the second half, getting on the end of a break by his full-back, Kyle Rowe, after the Eagles scrum conceded a penalty and field position. Hastings converted again.
With 25 minutes left, the Eagles removed their front row. The new props and hooker packed down, pushed too early and saw the whistle blown again. It was turning into the sort of night when replacements run on at regular intervals, rhythm drops away and fans play up for the cameras.
It was humid as hell, so slips and drops were explicable. The Eagles brought on a youthful debutant in the second row: Saia Uhila of the Utah Warriors, positively frolicsome at 37 years old. With 10 minutes left, the crowd ventured its first chant of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” They saw their team’s scrum wheel and Scotland win the put-in.
Still, Scotland hadn’t scored in 20 minutes. It looked like the drought would break but Kyle Steyn dropped the ball on a kick-through with the line begging. Even the home fans groaned at that. They groaned again when Fagerson made up for his error for the American try by controlling the ball at the back of a galloping scrum for an old-fashioned pushover try. Hastings stayed perfect off the tee, making it 42-7.
It started raining, not a surprise under skies murkier than a lobbyist’s conscience. Behind the western stand, the Washington monument receded into the gloom.
In the final analysis, a 23-man Eagles squad containing 20 players employed in MLR held up well, improved fitness and fight on show. They faced a strong Scotland squad too, 13 of coach Gregor Townsend’s 23 coming from Glasgow, last month winners of the United Rugby Championship, stunningly in South Africa.
Lawrence said: “For American rugby players as a whole, I think it shows that we can compete at that level with a right amount of integration of the national teams into the condition levels that are above the professional game here. So it’s really about working together with MLR.”
Assessing Uhila and others taking their first steps in Test rugby, Lawrence pronounced himself pleased. He picked out Conner Mooneyham, a wing made in northern California and at Life University in Georgia, now employed in Seattle.
The game ended with the Eagles battering the Scotland line but being held up and out.
Townsend told the press it was “a frustrating game to watch”, wryly noted that most of the penalties were conceded by Americans, and said: “I think we would have wanted to have kicked on and just been a bit more accurate in that second half.”
All in all, though, he surveyed a job well done. The Scots now go south, to face Chile and Uruguay.
