Nine months on from the Eagles’ tragic RWC qualifiers exit, the USA have the opportunity for revenge. The USA take on Portugal in Saturday in a Rugby World Cup warm-up match. It is the second of three warm-up matches for the Eagles. The USA were impressive winners first up against Romania in Bucharest.
Portugal have many returnees from the 2022 battle of Dubai. Ten of the starting men from that day will start against the Eagles again in Faro. Tomás Appleton again leads the team from inside center. José Lima is retained outside him.
Appleton and Lima are to be joined by three other starting backs from the Rugby World Cup Qualifier. They are scrum-half Samuel Marques, left winger Rodrigo Marta and fullback Nuno Sousa Guedes. Jerónimo Portela, who started at fly half on that day, will cover Joris Moura at fly half.
Five of the starting forwards are also repeated from Dubai. Loose head Francisco Fernandes Moreira and hooker Mike Tadjer have been retained up-front. Steve Cerqueira again starts in the second-row while João Granate and Thibault de Freitas start at flanker and N8 respectively.
The line-up to face the USA Eagles is relatively close to that expected to feature for Os Lobos at the World Cup. Portugal take-on Australia, Fiji, Georgia and Wales in pool play. It will be the second Rugby World Cup for the Portuguese. Their previous experience was a winless campaign in 2007. Portugal faced Italy, New Zealand, Scotland and Romania in that tournament.
The USA will not play at the World Cup but the Eagles are out to cause damage nonetheless. The USA has already done so; the Eagles were comfortable winners over Romania in Bucharest in their opening match of their tour.
The Eagles line-up features two changes from last week. Up-front Paul Mullen makes way for Kaleb Geiger at tight head and in the backs Tavite Lopeti replaces Tommaso Boni at center. Geiger will be making his test debut. He is a native of Colorado.
A second debut is possible from the bench. American Samoan native Lauina Futi is covering the outside backs. It is a continuation of new blood. The Eagles handed out first caps to the back-row of Sam Godda, Paddy Ryan, and Luke White against Romania. Scrum-half Nick McCarthy also debuted for the USA in that match and Boni made the allegiance change from Italy.
The Eagles were impressive against Romania and will be looking for more of the same again Portugal. They have a team to play a combination of running and set-piece rugby.
Portugal vs the USA came to be in qualifying after an eligibility scandal. Spain was disqualified for fielding Gavin van den Berg who had been outside of Spain for too long during his residency period. the South African lied to World Rugby yet escaped punishment. He now plays in Portugal while Spain miss out on competing on the biggest stage of them all.
PORTUGAL
1 Francisco Fernandes Moreira, 2 Mike Tadjer, 3 Anthony Alves, 4 José Madeira, 5 Steve Cerqueira, 6 João Granate, 7 Nicolás Martins, 8 Thibault de Freitas, 9 Samuel Marques, 10 Joris Moura, 11 Rodrigo Marta, 12 Tomás Appleton (capt.), 13 José Lima, 14 Vincent Pinto, 15 Nuno Sousa Guedes
Replacements: 16 David Costa ; 17 Lionel Campergue, 18 Diogo Hasse Ferreira, 19 Rafael Simões, 20 David Wallis, 21 Pedro Lucas, 22 Jerónimo Portela, 23 Manuel Cardoso Pinto
USA
1 Jack Iscard, 2 Dylan Fawitt, 3 Kaleb Geiger, 4 Cam Dolan, 5 Greg Peterson (capt.), 6 Sam Golla, 7 Paddy Ryan, 8 Luke White, 9 Nick McCarthy, 10 Luke Carty, 11 Nate Augspurger, 12 Tavite Lopeti, 13 Mika Kruse, 14 Christian Dyer, 15 Mitch Wilson
Replacements: 16 Peter Malcolm, 17 Jake Turnbull, 18 Paul Mullen, 19 Thomas Tu’avao, 20 Viliami Helu, 21 Ruben de Haas, 22 Chris Mattina, 23 Lauina Futi
RUGBY WORLD CUP WARM-UP
Date: Saturday, August 12
Kick-Off:4pm (Eastern)
Venue: Estadio Algarve, Faro (PT)
Referee: Paul Williams (New Zealand)
Assistant Referees: Mike Adamson (Scotland); Hollie Davidson (Scotland)
TMO: Thomas Charabas (France)
vs
COMPLETE RESULTS
Nov 18, 2022 – Portugal 16-16 USA (Dubai,
Nov 13, 2010 – Portugal 17-22 USA (Lisbon)
Apr 08, 1998 – Portugal 5-61 USA (Lisbon)
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