USA men’s 7s team Head Coach Alex Magleby was positive about his team’s performance, despite the USA finishing 1-5 in London.

The victories, said Magleby, would be nice, but he has seen progress.

“I’m just really, really proud of the guys,” Magleby told RUGBYMag.com. “I have no issues with this weekend at all. They were in every match, despite not getting the wins. When you’re not winning you get beat up in the press, but they kept hammering on and kept getting better and better.”

Magleby said the team was close to getting into Cup contention despite going 0-3 in Pool Play. Their average core was 12-22.

“For us the most important thing was we were going to get the foundation right,” said the coach. “And we’ve dramatically improved that. I am really, really happy for the guys. I’m gutted we’re not getting the wins. Easy to change tactics, but it’s not easy to work our tails off. These guys have developed that culture. No matter what was happened in the game, they were chasing kicks down, they were making opportunities to score, they were protecting each other’s insides, their legs were driving through contact. They were improving on defense.

“In time we’ll get more consistency in skill and everything else, but we can get the attitude and behavior correct.”

In London the USA won one match, 38-12 over Russia (an excellent turnaround from the 22-21 loss a week before). They lost to Samoa 31-17, England 15-5, Wales 28-19 (in a game where the referee was not their friend) and France 19-15 and 19-12.