Winning Plays, Winning Players

The following is a near word-for-word excerpt from a Facebook post I made in the wake of USA Rugby's tie against Portugal last Friday. The result means that, for the first time since 1995, the United States have failed to qualify for the Rugby World Cup.

I’ve reserved these thoughts for a while, in an attempt to be both respectful of the other USA rugby players and also to refrain from negativity while the Eagles were looking to qualify for the Rugby World Cup.

But we’ve failed to do so, and finally I think it’s an appropriate time to vouch for my brother, Ryan Rees, who continues to be overlooked by Gary Gold in favor of another option.

Who do you want running the point for your team, regardless of sport? You want the winner. You want the guy that does everything with the sole purpose of driving the team closer to a win. Not to look good, not make a highlight reel, not to shine in front of selectors - only to win.

Mark Few, long time highly successful Gonzaga basketball coach, refers to these invisible moments as “winning plays”. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of opportunities to make winning plays over the course of an 80 min rugby game. Lukhanyo Am is a great example of a guy who consistently makes tons of winning plays in todays game.

Since I’ve know Ryan, he’s only ever been a guy to consistently make winning plays, and has literally always won, no matter what team. Soccer, football, basketball, rugby, baseball - beyond being a highly talented athlete, his teams have ALWAYS won.

Simply looking at rugby, he’s played over 150 games and lost only 12. Sorry, but that’s not a coincidence. Two HS state championships, two college national championships, and an Eastern Conference MLR championship in 7 years of rugby is a very winning strike rate.

However, that’s translated to just two international caps for the Eagles and an impressive outing against the Currie Cup Champion Pumas from South Africa (listen to the commentators again and how impressed they were by his game)

As such, I must express an immense degree of frustration and confusion towards Gary Gold’s decision on Friday to not even roster Ryan Rees in a must-win game. Not only was the decision to play each member of the starting backline for 80 min a ridiculous ask of his own players, but his choice to not even have a reserve half-back on the bench largely cost us the game. Our one-dimensional approach to the game, our poor game management, and our appalling lack of execution in the kicking game ultimately unglued us. If you ask me, we lost in the “winning plays” department. The “he gets it” mental side of sports and winning.

I don’t think the American rugby system is as broken as people are making it out to be. The college rugby and academy infrastructure is strong, the MLR has tons of Americans playing rugby (nearly) full time, and there are about a dozen Americans playing overseas in big leagues.

I truly hope our next coach picks the winners to represent the team moving forward - to be fair, many of the guys out on Friday were winners, but not all in my opinion. “I’m not looking for the best players, I’m looking for the right players,” said the USA coach in Miracle.

I’m sticking up for my brother here, but also for all the people out there who do the invisible work that makes a team better at practice, during the games, and all the moments in between. Those are the winners, and often times they too are the best players.