The USA overcame a 13 point half time deficit to defeat Canada 34-25 in the 2000 Epson Cup at Manchester, NH, vaulting the eagles to first place in the Pacific Rim tournament.
It was physical Canadian side that dominated the scrums and loose play in the first half, but the boot of Eagles flyhalf Grant Wells made all the difference on the day, scoring 14 points on four conversions, a penalty and an injury time dropgoal.
Eagles coach, Australian Duncan Hall, was impressed by his young squad's turnaround, but admits he was a little bit suprised that they pulled it off.
"To turn around a 13 point deficit at halftime in a test match is pretty tough, against one of your major opponents ... forever," said Hall, who was at the helm for only his second match.
Hall would not single out one person on the side that really stepped up and took control, preferring to heap his praise on the team effort. But the play of captain Dave Hodges did garner perhaps a little bit of extra praise as he noted the play of the Brigend 8 man, who came off three times for treatment to a broken nose.
"He's a great leader, and it's fantastic to have him in the team, and as captain," he said.
The Eagles opened the scoring at the 7 minute mark with fullback Kurt Shuman diving under the posts from a pass at the base of a ruck. Hall converted for the 7-0 lead.
Canada responded with hooker Harry Toews rumbling across from five metres which flyhalf Scott Stewart converted to even the score at 7 eleven minutes in.
Canada had troubles with both their throw ins and some of the rulings by Samoan referee Anetere'a Aiolupotea, resulting in a number of turnovers by the Maple Leafs.
Despite that Scott Stewart kicked penalties of 33 and 45 metres as well as converting a Nik Witkowski try to take a 20-7 lead into the locker room.
According to Canada coach Dave Clark, who once coached his eagles counterpart, the score should have been a lot higher, but missed opportunities were to blame.
Choosing his words carefully the disappointed Australian said, "We should have been far more precise in the first half. Instead of it being 20 points in the first half it should have been 37 or 47. Of course we had enough ball to do that."
He added that facing the wind in the second half didn't help. "We would turn the ball over to them, we did that in the first half, and they put the ball behind us."
The US comeback started following a Ryan Banks try off a ramble up the sideline that he touched down in the corner. Stewart missed the conversion and that is when the floodgates opened.
Tries by replacements Robbie Flynn(hooker) and prop Joe Clayton, both converted by Wells made the score 25-24 USA, and memories of the '99 Epson Cup victory by the Eagles began to flood back to the Canadians.
The crowd chanted USA as outside centre Juan Grobler scored a try under the posts in the 73rd minute (Wells converted) following a Canadian penalty and ensuing maul to give the Eagles a 6 point buffer.
Canada pressed well into injury time with one sequence going at least ten phases of recycled ball with no way of solving the tight American defence. Then US wing Malakai Delai kicked through twice on looping passes to wing Fred Asselin and cleared the ball down to the Canadian five metre line. A knock on by Canada in front of their posts gave the Eagles a scrum, which Wells used to slot an easy 17 metre drop goal to cement the victory.
Captain Dave Hodges was not happy with the way his squad played in the first half, saying "I thought we had a really disappointing first half. I thought their forwards definitely won it. They took it to us time and time again, crossing the gain line.
"I felt that that was one of the major things that if we could shore that up, not give the 50/50 pass, and just play simple rugby."
Canada now get on a plane for 20 hour flight to South Africa to take on the Sprinkboks in a week's time, while the USA stay in Manchester to await Ireland for one off test June 10th.
The teams:
Canada: 1 Garth Cooke, 2 Harry Toews, 3 Duane Major, 4 Alan Charron (c), 5 John Tait, 6 Dan Baugh, 7 John Hutchinson, 8 Ryan Banks, 9 Nick Milau, 10 Scott Stewart, 11 Fred Asselin, 12 Kyle Nichols, 13 Nik Witkowski, 14 Sean Fauth, 15 Winston Stanley
Reserves: Gregor Dixon, Ed Knaggs, Phil Murphy, Kevin Tkachuk, Jason Verstraten
United States: 1 Ray Lehner, 2 Kirk Khasigian, 3 John McBride, 4 Philippe Farner, 5 Tom Kelleher, 6 Kort Schubert, 7 Don Younger, 8 Dave Hodges (c), 9 Kevin Dalzell, 10 Grant Wells, 11 Andre Blom, 12 Phillip Eloff, 13 Juan Grobler, 14 Malakai Delai, 15 Kurt Shuman
Reserves: John Burke, Joe Clayton, Robbie Flynn
Referee: Aiolupotea a.
Points Scorers:
Canada
Tries: Banks R. 1, Toews H. 1, Witkowski N. 1
Conv: Stewart D.S. 2
Pen K.: Stewart D.S. 2
United States
Tries: Clayton J. 1, Flynn R. 1, Grobler J. 1, Shuman K.D. 1
Conv: Wells G. 4
Pen K.: Wells G. 1
Drop G.: Wells G. 1
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