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| Magleby Looking to Replicate US 7s Assembly |
| Colleges - All Americans | ||||||||||||||||||||
All American Head Coach Alex Magleby knows a little bit about elite-level 7s assemblies. The former USA 7s team captain hopes to replicate a national team 7s assembly when the All American 7s squad arrives in Chula Vista Saturday. But he also knows his experience isn’t the be-all and end-all. “The game and the IRB circuit have evolved since I played,” Magleby told RUGBYMag.com. “We have a lot of intellectual capital to draw from. Not just me, but Matt Hawkins, who will be in camp, Al Caravelli, our analyst Paul Golding, and former players such as Jason Raven and David Fee. There’s a lot of international 7s experience there.” The All American players will arrive in Chula Vista on Saturday, get acquainted, and then get run through a series of fitness tests under Caravelli’s watchful eye on Sunday morning. National Team Coach Caravelli will run the fitness tests in part because Magleby and Caravelli want all measurements to be consistent. Caravelli knows the numbers from his national team players, and he knows how he runs tests. After that, the All Americans will play against the newly-named Southern California team. That type of hard-nosed scrimmage, too, is what players experience on the HSBC Sevens World Series. “Our job is to see how these players do in an assembly,” said Magleby. “We put them under some duress on Sunday, recover, work through the week, and play a tournament on the next weekend. We try to replicate what they do on the IRB circuit. That way we can start to develop these players and not have Coach Caravelli have to do it in his camps.” Several players who could have been involved in this camp are not there because of injury, school and work. Several players who performed well in the USA 7s Collegiate Rugby Championships now have started careers and can’t get away. Military commitments keep some away also. Others have injuries (highest-profile among them might be Ryan Roundy, who broke his leg playing for the All Americans in July). But the 18 players in camp are impressive (even if some are a little banged up). They are coming in fit as all have been doing workouts through the summer and sending the results in to the coaching staff. Twelve of the 18 will be chosen to play in the National All-Star Championships in nine days, while the remaining six will either be allocated to the injury player pool, or added to all-star squads to make teams 13-strong (with Caravelli adding one or two more prospects to fill out the squads). “We have to be clear to the players what the goals are,” said Magleby. “In 15s we have two goals: the All American list, which lists the best collegiate players, and then the second is to develop players at the international level, where we pick players who have potential as Eagles. In 7s, we don’t have a specific college 7s season right now, so we’re picking an All American team based on players who we think can be international 7s players.” USA All American 7s Squad |
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