Falcons Take Okinawa 7s Cup in Unbeaten Performance

In case you've missed all of the social media posts and articles from various rugby outlets, the USA Falcons (we) took gold in Okinawa (there were actually no medals). There are some great recaps up on The Rugby Breakdown and USA Rugby, so I'll try to stay away from too much repeated information.

On day one, we faced Japan's A and B squads in the first and last matches of the day, and took on France between those matches. Though we didn't take a loss, we only won one of those games, as we tied both of the Japan squads 19-19 (that's right, both of our Japan matches ended in 19-19 ties).

Both of the Japan matches followed the same story line. We had trouble maintaining possession due to Japan's effectiveness around the breakdown. On a couple of occasions we had players make great line breaks, but support was slow, and Japan turned over the ball. When we were able to maintain possession, around line breaks, we scored. Those two games were our two worst offensive efforts in pool play, and our two worst defensive efforts of the tournament. It was limited possession that was the deciding factor in what could've been two more wins for the Falcons.

The game against France was a different story. Not only did we maintain possession, we supported well and ran our system effectively. Like most French squads, this France team was a scrappy team, and were able to claw out some line breaks and put a try on the board. However, in the end, we were the more disciplined team, and while they were scrappy, they were no match for our physicality. Behind two Kate Zackary tries, we tallied 29 points for the match.

In the first match of day two, we ran into an opponent that could match our physicality. The Netherlands brought a squad of big, hard running locomotives. In this match, we decided not to try to out physical a physical team and instead relied on ball movement and a balanced attack to take the 33-0 victory. We had five different players score in this match.

In our final pool match, we faced a tough Australia team. While the match was close for most of the 14 minutes, we ended up pulling away after a sneaky chip kick, by Cheta Emba, that bounced perfectly into her hands and led her down the sideline for a score. Kelsi Stockert followed that score with one of her own as the horn sounded, and we took a 26-17 victory going into the Cup Finals.

The Finals would be a repeat of the last pool match, as we faced Australia again. Australia switched up their game plan right off the bat and sent the opening kickoff deep into our end. A momentary cerebral shutdown and a blocked kick led to a quick Australian try. They followed their score with another deep kick, but this time we handled it better and after scores from Naya Tapper and Emba, we took a 12-5 halftime lead.

The second half was a lot of back and forth play. The game grew more and more physical after we scored again and Australia scrambled to close the gap. They would bring the score to 19-12 as the horn sounded and their final effort on the ensuing kickoff would be a good one, but not enough as the Falcons claimed the Okinawa 7s title.

Upon receiving the blue glass Okinawa Cup, we got a grand ovation by a group of Americans who lived or were stationed in Japan. Though Japan boasted the largest fan base at their home tournament, we had the second largest, and perhaps the loudest.

Okinawa 7s brought us some valuable tournament time, a chance to play with new players and try out new things. We also had a blast, and our wonderful fans helped to make it fun.