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The USA U20s are back home after the initial camp of the 2013-2014 season,
and things are looking up, somewhat.
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A new Head Coach is set to be named very soon, and all indications are that
the person in charge will be Billy Millard, newly-installed as the USA
Men’s 15s attack coach in October. Millard was not at the camp, in part
because he hasn’t officially signed on, and with USA Rugby CEO Nigel
Melville having said he is looking for someone to oversee an academy
system, it could be that Millard’s job will involve, in part, that
system.
So in Tempe, Ariz., Michael Engelbrecht took a break from his work with the
High School All American team to run the Winter Camp (full
list of players here). Engelbrecht enlisted help from a number of
quarters, with former Wellington Hurricanes and current Taranaki High
Performance Manager Jono Phillips coming in, along with former USA U20 Head
Coach Scott Lawrence, former Eagle Luke Gross, former SFGG Head Coach Paul
Keeler, and Lindenwood coach JD Stephenson.
“All of these guys volunteered their time and were just amazing,” said
Engelbrecht.
Notable in this group was Lawrence, who had been rebuffed by USA Rugby for
his U20s plan in 2012.
“Scott was absolute class,” said Engelbrecht. “His clarity and planning for
how he goes about working with the players, and his drill progression was
just incredibly professional.”
Lawrence had another hand in the team preparation – more on that
later.
Engelbrecht had the unenviable job of putting together a camp in just six
weeks. With Millard not on the job yet, Engelbrecht had to somewhat guess
what Millard would want in a team. He did rely on aging-out High School All
Americans, but he also went further afield, sometimes using coach
recommendation and taking a flyer on a player or two.
The result was a group that was missing players who couldn’t make the camp
on short notice, and one that wasn’t known well by the coaches. Still, said
Engelbrecht, they got a lot of work done.
“I came out of this pretty pleased with what we have,” said Engelbrecht.
“It would have been good to have a baseline of what we have set forth in
June. But we have it now, and while we were stressed and stretched, the
players had a great attitude and worked really hard.”
The all hands on deck attitude from the coaching staff helped, as did the
fact that the HSAA team was staying in the same hotel and working out at
the same fields. Players who graduated from Salty Thompson’s HSAA program
could see Thompson in the halls, adding an endorsement of the familiar to a
U20 program that still has a hundred questions looming over it.
Not least of those questions is, what now? With Engelbrecht and Lawrence’s
help, the players filled out electronic forms mapping out their personal
performance plan to fill in the time between now and the next assembly.
Those forms were sent to their regular coaches so that the players will
have some support at home – certainly elements of this came from
Lawrence.
The U20s will next assemble in February, likely at the Olympic Training
Center in Chula Vista, and then work toward the April Junior World Rugby
Trophy in Hong Kong with another assembly and some practice games.
The scrimmages held on the last day of this winter camp were filmed, as
were several of the training sessions, and they will be made available to
the new Head Coach. That footage will likely show that the HSAA alumni
showed stronger, on average, than those new to a national team
assembly.
Hooker Codi Jones of Cal Maritime, prop Valdemar Lee-Lo of Sierra, flanker
Zach Bonte of UCLA, and wing Matt Long of Cal Poly all had strong
camps.
But Engelbrecht said there are holes in the talent pool. Front Row remains
a thin position, while the locks all seem to be tall flanker-types, rather
than the more bulky versions (those body types will have been playing a lot
of football, most likely). Flyhalf is still a position where the USA needs
depth and experience at all levels.