{"id":125569,"date":"2025-09-07T13:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T13:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/125569\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T13:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T13:18:09","slug":"shout-out-to-the-girls-us-exit-rugby-world-cup-but-young-stars-stoke-hope-for-future-usa-womens-rugby-union-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/125569\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Shout out to the girls\u2019: US exit Rugby World Cup but young stars stoke hope for future | USA women’s rugby union team"},"content":{"rendered":"

The US Eagles exited the World Cup on Saturday after beating Samoa 60-0 in York<\/a> but seeing Australia hold England to 47-7 in Brighton<\/a>, enough for the Wallaroos to reach the quarter-finals on points differential.<\/p>\n

Kate Zackary\u2019s team will be disappointed to miss a last-eight date with Canada, knowing they might well have made it had a few things gone differently.<\/p>\n

In the first game<\/a>, in front of nearly 43,000 fans in Sunderland on a historic night for women\u2019s rugby, England might have been held to less than 69-7. In the second and third games, better goal-kicking would have helped. But for five missed conversions, Samoa would have been beaten 70-0. As it turned out, that still would not have been enough, but missed kicks also cost the US victory against Australia in round two, a 31-31 tie<\/a> that will go down as a World Cup classic but also a missed chance for a historic American win.<\/p>\n

After the Samoa game Zackary, the USA captain, said: \u201cWe put our whole hearts on the line and that\u2019s all I can ask for. So wherever the chips fall, they\u2019ll fall how they will, and we\u2019ll just pick up the pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was true that the Eagles put it all on the line \u2013 their own line, in Zackary\u2019s case, the Ealing<\/a> Trailfinders flanker pulling off a fine last-ditch tackle to deny Samoa what would have been an immensely popular, and thoroughly deserved, first try of the tournament.<\/p>\n

The Eagles\u2019 coach, Sione Fukofuka, said after the Samoa game: \u201cWe rise and fall as a team, so we\u2019ll watch [England v Australia] together, and obviously, first time ever, I think, cheering on the English team and hoping for the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

The best didn\u2019t materialize but Fukofuka\u2019s post-tournament review should include glowing words for a number of younger players who should be around for the next World Cup, in Australia four years from now.<\/p>\n

Chief among them is Freda Tafuna<\/a>, a phenomenally pacey and powerful flanker who is not only just 22 but is still a student, at Lindenwood in Missouri. College player of the year<\/a> two years running, she now has six World Cup tries \u2013 two against Australia, four against Samoa \u2013 and two player-of-the-match awards.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll glory to God,\u201d Tafuna said on Saturday. \u201cShout out to the girls, my family and my friends back home, and just thank you to the crowd. You guys are the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the game, the Guardian spoke to Erica Jarrell-Searcy<\/a>, the dynamic Eagles lock who ended up scoring a try in each World Cup game \u2013 a stunning sprint from 40 meters against England, a short-range plunge against Australia, a 20m run-in against Samoa \u2013 to emerge as a tournament star.<\/p>\n

\u201cFreda\u2019s a mutant,\u201d Jarrell-Searcy laughed, reaching for a term of highest-possible praise among rugby forwards everywhere. \u201cOh, she\u2019s so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

After graduation, it would appear likely Tafuna will follow Jarrell-Searcy to England, where the lock plays for Sale Sharks. Herself not long out of Harvard \u2013 like the scrum-half Cass Bargell<\/a>, another to shine in England \u2013 Jarrell-Searcy sees college as a source of future strength.<\/p>\n

Erica Jarrell-Searcy made a big impression at this year\u2019s World Cup. Photograph: Paul Ellis\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe college game is some of the best-resourced rugby you can play as a young American athlete,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t think you could possibly overstate the role of the college game as a feeder for American rugby right now, and then with Women\u2019s Elite Rugby<\/a> [the new semi-professional domestic league] hopefully taking root, it\u2019s all growing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the future of this group, and the next cycle especially, is very bright. Watching Harvard every weekend, I never would have played on the team they\u2019ve got now. The girls they can recruit, on their first day of college they are better than some senior players now. I mean, just look at Sariah Ibarra<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Southern California, partly shaped in New Zealand, the full-back in fact bypassed the college game to sign a contract with USA Sevens, to chase Olympic gold.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s 19, tearing it up,\u201d Jarrell-Searcy said, of Ibarra\u2019s excursion into 15s. \u201cThe second we saw her in camp, we knew she was special, and she\u2019s part of a generation that are all special. So yeah, it\u2019s going to be a really cool couple years.\u201d<\/p>\n

It will be a less cool couple of days for the Eagles, as they pack and prepare to fly home. But there was consolation in full view immediately after the game on Saturday, as the Americans and Samoans gathered on the field to embrace, laugh, dance and sing \u2013 a hymn, led by the Samoans, addressed in gratitude to a grateful crowd.<\/p>\n

Such expressions of sheer joy in rugby and its traditions have been a prominent part of this World Cup, opponents showing delight in each other, in challenges posed and met, in hard play in front of unprecedented crowds and media attention for a game built on respect and support.<\/p>\n

\u201cJoy has been a big theme for us,\u201d Jarrell-Searcy said, of an Eagles squad containing Ilona Maher, the exuberant social media superstar<\/a> whose credo \u2013 \u201cBeast, Beauty, Brains\u201d \u2013 has been on full display.<\/p>\n

Jarrell-Searcy continued: \u201cCharles Dudley, our strength and conditioning coach, he has this graph where it\u2019s kind of for him to tell us how much the week is gonna suck. We got to this week, it was the peak of the peak on the graph.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re, like, dipping into this red zone where you might start to pick up little injuries, because we\u2019re working so hard. We know that, and we\u2019re prepared for that, but \u2026 I think also we were sort of like synced-up in our menstrual cycles in a way that was not helpful to also be at the peak of the peak.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there\u2019s tears and frustration, and just like the absolute pits. And I sat with Mel Bosman, our forwards coach<\/a>, at breakfast, and I pulled up this picture \u2026 when we were at a captain\u2019s run making a TikTok with Lo [Maher] and the photographers were there, and they took a picture of us, like, huddling around Lo\u2019s phone. And we\u2019re tight, and we\u2019re leaning in and we\u2019re grinning, just trying to figure out how to get this TikTok done right.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I was like, \u2018Imagine if this huddle wasn\u2019t about, you know, a silly, inconsequential TikTok. Imagine if that was a high-performance huddle, and we\u2019re focusing on, you know, a dropped ball, a play that didn\u2019t go right, and we\u2019re gonna get it right, and we\u2019re excited about getting it right, we\u2019re not frustrated about getting it wrong.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd Mel was like, \u2018That\u2019s so important.\u2019 You know, obviously from her experience<\/a> with the [New Zealand] Black Ferns, she knows about that sisterhood and how motivating it can be to express yourself and not necessarily be constantly trying to avoid failure, but actually seeking success. And we\u2019ve brought joy, ever since then.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur end-of-the-week units training has been, anybody who\u2019s not in, because we have injuries here and there, dragging a speaker up and down the line-out, whatever disruptive music they can, like, absolute not-safe-for-work music. We had pool noodles one time, we were throwing tackle pads in the air. Would you believe some of our best attack and line-out drill has come out of those joyful experiences?<\/p>\n

\u201cSo yeah, joy, and especially feminine joy, I think it\u2019s a non-zero part of this World Cup \u2013 as an athlete and as a fan.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The US Eagles exited the World Cup on Saturday after beating Samoa 60-0 in York but seeing Australia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-125569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}