WXV: USA push France to an eight-point game in Langley

The USA held the world number four side to an eight-point game in WXV 1, which finished in a 22-14 to France at Langley Events Centre.

France opened the scoring through a Lina Queyroi penalty as the USA were penalised for being offside, which gave Les Bleues a three-point lead inside the first ten minutes.

The Eagles applied the pressure, forcing five handling errors from France in the first 15 minutes and having the upper hand in possession with 67%.

Marine Menager was the first to successfully break the USA defence, scoring in the corner just before the half-hour mark as France worked out wide after patiently battling through the phases to earn an 8-0 lead.

A disallowed try before half-time due to obstruction following a lineout meant the Eagles went into the break scoreless.

France started the second half with intent, scoring just four minutes in as Romane Menager darted through a gap, converted by Queyroi to make the score 15-0.

They added their third soon after as Teani Feleu made a barnstorming carry to muscle her way to the line in her second start for the national team, set up well by Pauline Bourdon Sansus.

The USA went a player down as Hallie Taufoou was yellow-carded for a deliberate knock-on in the 52nd minute, but that didn’t stop them from scoring their first try through Rachel Johnson, who reached over the line to add five points next to the posts.

McKenzie Hawkins added the two points to make the score 22-7. Dogged persistence from the Eagles saw them score their second with the clock in the red through Taufoou, which when converted by Hawkins drew the final score to within eight points.

After the match, head coach Sione Fukofuka said: “We aspire to be a top-four team. Being here at WXV 1 allows us to compete against the best in the world, at 22-14, eight points between us and the number four in the world is pretty positive and shows us the potential we have and in that dressing room it was disappointment that we didn't play to our potential and that's exciting.

“With the World Cup, we've got ten months to build and I'm pretty happy with where we're progressing. We're competitive, and we want to close the gap even further and we get another opportunity next week so I'm excited for that.

“From our point of view, each time we got into our A zone we were really close to capitalising which was great and at the end, we scored points which was fantastic. We really wanted to play 80 minutes and close out the back end of our game and the players who came off of the bench today had a real positive impact and allowed us to close us that gap to France.

“We looked to be a little bit more expressive with the ball. The ball did shift a lot more in the middle of the field, we also transitioned better. Our kicking game I was pretty happy with in terms of our decision making so that was a big positive. Clearly, we'd like more opportunities in the A zone so we'll keep pushing on that for next week.”

Captain Kate Zackary added: “We were happy to see a few things that we're working on executed well today. There is always room for improvement, which I don't mind, I like having area to grow. It's about the big dance next year and as long as we keep seeing growth each game I'm really happy with the team.

“The biggest thing is kudos to our bench coming in today, we asked them to really bring the energy when they step on and pick people up and bring them with them, and I thought they did a great job of that.

“Each one of these games is another dress rehearsal at the end of the day. We call them Test matches, that's what they are. Winning counts, points count, rankings count towards a lot of stuff, but it's also the time to rehearse things, get things right, and as I've said before, the World Cup is just around the corner. Each one of these games allows us to keep building and using them as stepping stones."

The Eagles are currently in their first year competing in the top level of WXV, moving up from WXV 2 as a result of their third-place finish at the Pacific Four Series earlier in the year.

Zackary spoke of the impact of the tournament globally saying: "Overall, if you look at WXV 2 this year it's a really competitive section of teams, even WXV 3, seeing in the teams in there and how they're competing. For us, we have a lot of pride that we've made it to WXV 1.

"We get to play against the teams we want to be playing against. We want to play those top-four teams and so competition-wise it's just a little bit faster, it's a little bit more physical, but the quality of rugby across all three, it's really great to see how the level is coming up across all teams. We saw Madagascar scoring their first try this weekend, all the way up to this match and the rest that are this weekend. We're proud to be here and now we have to keep improving."

Speaking on the disallowed try before half-time, Fukofuka said:“We went into the break really confident that had that been awarded it would have been 8-7. We were pretty positive in terms of our attitude going in, disappointed obviously that it was disallowed and then the start of the second half we had a pretty good plan and unfortunately, a couple of errors put us under pressure.

Zackary continued: "On the pitch for us, standing at halfway ready to celebrate and then having that, at the end of the day things happen. We talk a lot about next action, not every call is going to go your way, and things like that are going to happen it's the great thing, sometimes it goes your way, and sometimes it goes against you. But for us, it's just focusing on the next action which I thought we did initially and then we've just got to clean up the start of that second half.”

The USA had a 100% win percentage in the scrum in addition to an improved kicking performance, which they will carry with them to next weekend’s game against Ireland at BC Place.

Fukofuka said: "We're pretty confident in our set piece, when we execute it and hit our standards that we know we can hit we put teams under pressure. Our kicking game, clearly today was an improvement from last week so we'll keep building on that. Then the ability to move the ball. It's inside so it will be a nice fast track and hopefully, it will allow us to express ourselves and unlock the outside.”