USA Stats from 2009/2010 IRB World Series

I started work on this a couple months ago, but never got around to finishing. Seeing as there’s not much news floating around right now, it seemed like a great time to finish it.

At the end of May, the USA 7′s team finished off their most successful IRB 7′s World Series in team history. The team secured more points than ever before, their highest place in the standings, and renewed their status as a “core” team on the series.

The great part about their season? They still have alot of room to get better. The team struggled in the first two stops on the series and limped through the final two tournaments.

During the four touraments in the middle they looked every bit of a Top 10 team and then some. If Head Coach Al Caravelli can figure out how to get them off to a good start and then finish strong, then they should be able to crack the Top 8 this coming season.

Taking a look back at some numbers from the season, the team went 18-25 overall for a .419 winning percentage, which was their best record ever. The USA was outscored 838-680 which averages out to 19.5/game given up to 15.8/game scored. Toss out a handful of lopsided losses and that number is pretty much even.

The USA was shut out twice during the season. The first came in George at the hands of New Zealand (57-0) and doubles as the team’s worst defeat of the season. The second came in Adelaide when they fell to Australia 36-0.

The USA posted two shutouts of their own during the season. A 5-0 win over Portugal in Dubai and a 62-0 whitewashing of Thailand in Hong Kong.

Against the Top 10 teams on the series, the USA went 6-19 with three of those wins coming at the expense of Argentina. The USA needs to get that number closer to 10-15 if they’re going to crack the Top 8 and make another trip to a Cup Final. A record in that range is achievable as the squad suffered some very close losses to Top 10 teams this past season. A couple good bounces of the ball and the USA could have pulled out 2-3 more wins this past season.

At the beginning of the season, Caravelli noted that if he could find consistency in the squad, then they would be in good shape. Plans to use under 21 players over the course of the season fell a bit short for Caravelli as he had to employ 26 different players over the course of the season. The most consistency came during the middle stages of the series, where the team also achieved their most success.

Injuries and conflicts hit the squad particularily hard during the final two stop on the series and led to a 3-7 record in those two tournaments.

Shalom Suniula was the only USA player to appear in all eight tournaments on the IRB World Series. A good core of players appeared in six of the eight tournaments.

Nick Edwards led the team in tries with 17 despite missing the last two tournaments. He was followed by Kevin Swiryn (15), Matt Hawkins (13), and Paul Emerick (9).

Nese Malifa led the team in points scored with 120 points behind eight tries and 40 conversions.

How those numbers compare historically is hard to determine as both the IRB and USA Rugby have spotty or no stats at all from past seasons.

Here are the totals for all USA players during the 2009/2010 IRB World Series.

Player	Tourn.	GP	Tries	C/A	Points
Shalom Suniula	8	36	5	11/19	47
Zach Test	7	34	8		40
Matt Hawkins	6	33	13		65
Marco Barnard	6	29	8	1/2	42
Mark Bokhoven	6	21	4		20
Nese Malifa	6	28	8	40/69	120
Leonard Peters	6	25	2		10
Kevin Swiryn	6	28	15		75
Nick Edwards	6	29	17		85
Paul Emerick	6	30	9		45
Tommy Saunders	4	7	0		0
Mile Pulu	4	19	4		20
Ata Malifa	3	9	0	1/3	2
Ryan Roundy	2	4	0		0
Alex Ross	2	7	0		0
Tai Enosa	2	7	1	3/3	11
Blaine Scully	2	9	6		30
Colin Hawley	2	8	2		10
Zach Pangelinan	2	6	3	4/6	23
Volney Rouse	2	6	0		0
Peter Sio	2	10	1		5
Andrew Suniula	2	10	1		5
Jone Naqica	1	2	0	4/6	8
Todd Clever	1	3	0		0
Thretton Palamo	1	5	0		0
Bennie Brazell	1	2	1		5