USA men name team to face Romania

Head Coach Scott Lawrence and the Men’s Eagles staff announced today the match day 23 set for their first match of the year against Romania.

The two-test July series at home kicks off Friday, July 5, at 8pm ET at SeatGeek Stadium in Chicago. Tickets are available at usa.rugby/tickets with streaming live on FloRugby.

The squad arrived in Chicago for a brief camp beginning June 30, in prep for the continued American Series produced in partnership with AEG Rugby. Starters Renger van Eerten and JP Smith are set to make their USA Eagles debut from the Lock and Scrumhalf positions. 

Four players were called up to the assembled squad in Chicago - Viliami Helu, Kaleb Geiger, Saia Uhila and Navy’s Ethan McVeigh as Cam Dolan, Ruben de Haas, Alex Maughn and Jason Damm are unable to tour due to injury recovery. 

The Eagles last played Romania last August, coming away with a 31-17 win, another edition of the Pershing Cup - a tradition between the two nations during every test match. The Pershing Cup will be in attendance at Seat Geek Stadium where the winning team will travel home with the relic. The Eagles are first assembling since winning the Vila International Rugby Cup in November 2023, and are looking forward to kicking off their first home test series since 2022.

“We’re all very excited to be back together after seven and a half months apart. It’s been a high energy assembly so far during a short prep week. The main focus within the group this week is really just getting back together, connecting on and off the field and begin cohesive again as a team to represent our country.”