USA team players celebrate after beating Japan during the 2011 USA Sevens Rugby World Series at Sam Boyd Stadium Sunday, February 13, 2011. The USA team won a 27-7 victory over Uruguay, then beat Japan 19-12 to win the Shield final.
Sunday, Feb. 13, 2011 | 9:03 p.m.
Final Results
Cup: South Africa 24, Fiji 14
Plate: Samoa 26, Kenya 17
Bowl: Scotland 19, Canada 14
Shield: USA 19, Japan 12
Don’t read too much into the brief ceremony and victory lap Team USA enjoyed after winning its final two games at the USA Sevens Rugby Tournament. It was a formality.
Although the Americans finished the weekend strong at Sam Boyd Stadium and won the Shield bracket, the players were disappointed with their overall showing. Through two days of tournament play, USA went 3-3.
“To be brutally honest, no I’m not happy,” said injured Team USA member Mark Bokhoven. “I’m not happy we won the Shield. Yeah, it’s good we ended it with two victories but our standards are so much higher than winning the Shield.”
Team USA beat Japan 19-12 to capture the Shield, which is rugby’s equivalent of a double-elimination loser’s bracket. The Americans went 1-2 during pool play Saturday and started Sunday with a 19-15 defeat to rival Canada before taking down Uruguay and Japan.
“We’re disappointed because we know we can do so much better,” American coach Al Caravelli said.
USA would like to get to the point where it’s spending its Sundays competing against the likes of South Africa, which prevailed to win the 2011 tournament in Las Vegas.
South Africa beat Fiji 24-14 in the Cup Final on Sunday afternoon to capture the championship. It was the team’s first rugby sevens tournament title in two years.
“It’s been ages since then and a lot of these guys haven’t experienced anything like that,” said South African captain Kyle Brown. “It’s fantastic for them and I want them to keep this feeling in their heart every time they go out there.”
South Africa overcame a tough road to the title game by beating perennial powers Australia and England.
Chris Dry and Cecil Afrika scored early tries in the Cup Final to give South Africa a 14-0 lead, but it was the squad’s defense that clinched the victory. Fiji struggled to find lanes to move the ball throughout the match.
“It’s one of the fundamentals of the game,” Brown said. “You can attack as well as you can, but if you can't stop people from running at your line you’re going to lose at the end of the day.”
USA could have used plenty of excuses for its poor performance against Canada, not the least of which was losing three of its players to injury — including Bokhoven, who tore his ACL and will miss the rest of the year — during Saturday’s games.
Paul Emerick scored two tries in the match, but it wasn’t enough to overcome an early 14-0 Canada lead.
“We believe that we’re definitely a league above Canada,” Caravelli said. “Not to take anything away from them, but when you put 31 points on them a week ago and then you let them win, we should have closed out the game.”
Caravelli shared positive thoughts on the weekend experience as a whole. In its second year in Las Vegas, the USA Sevens Rugby Tournament announced a two-day attendance of 49,909.
That’s an increase of 13,000 people from last year’s event. The tournament is scheduled to come to Las Vegas again next year with an option for 2013.
“Hopefully we can build on this for next year, the fans will continue to grow and we’ll attract more athletes,” Caravelli said.
Case Keefer can be reached at 948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.
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