Eagles see off Russia

Editor

The USA secured a hard-fought 28-7 victory over Rusia at Allianz Park in London on Saturday.

The USA secured a hard-fought 28-7 victory over Rusia at Allianz Park in London on Saturday.

Chris Wyles the USA full-back, and Saracens stalwart, was in familiar surroundings at Sarries' home ground and got his side off to a solid start with an early try which was converted by fly-half Adam Siddal.

The lead was extended to 12-0 when Samu Manoa was rewarded with a five-pointer after a period of sustained pressure and good teamwork. Unfortunately the conversion was missed, but the Eagles would hold a solid defensive line throughout the first half.

Siddal added another penalty, after the break, before Russia scored their first points via a try from Andrey Garbuzov. Ramil Gaysin slotted the conversion to make it 15-7.

This was just the wake-up call the USA needed and from that point onwards they would not allow their opponents much field possession. Cameron Dolan also got in for a late try for the Eagles which was converted by Siddal. The pivot also succeeded with two further penalties during this period.

The scorers:

For USA:
Tries: Wyles, Manoa, Dolan
Cons: Siddal 2
Pen: Siddal 3

For Russia:
Try: Garbuzov
Con: Gaysin

Russia: 15 Ramil Gaysin, 14 Vasily Artemyev, 13 Igor Galinovskiy, 12 Dmitry Gerasimov, 11 Vladimir Ostroushko, 10 Sergey Sugrobov, 9 Anton Ryabov, 8 Victor Gresev, 7 Pavel Butenko, 6 Alexander Khudyakov, 5 Andrey Garbuzov, 4 Alexander Voytov (c), 3 Evgeny Pronenko, 2 Valery Tsnobiladze, 1 Grigory Tsnobiladze.
Replacements: 16 Vladislav Korshunov, 17 Aleksey Volkov, 18 Innokentiy Zykov, 19 Denis Antonov, 20 Artem Fatakhov, 21 Yury Kushnarev, 22 Andrey Otrokov, 23 Denis Simplikevich.

USA: 15 Chris Wyles, 14 Blaine Scully, 13 Folau Niua, 12 Andrew Suniula, 11 Tim Maupin, 10 Adam Siddal, 9 Robbie Shaw, 8 Cameron Dolan, 7 Scott LaValla, 6 Todd Clever (c), 5 Samu Manoa, 4 Tai Tuisamoa, 3 Titi Lamositele, 2 Phil Thiel, 1 Nick Wallace
Replacements: 16 Zach Fonoglio, 17 Olive Kilifi, 18 Eric Fry, 19 Graham Harriman, 20 Derek Asburn, 21 Shaun Davies, 22 Seamus Kelly, 23 Luke Hume

Referee: Marius Mitrea (Italy)