Well Gainzters, after three years of dedicated training, I finally got invited to my first USA Rugby XV camp! This is has been a massive goal of mine for a long time now (since college if I'm being honest) and the whole experience was pretty surreal. I got the invite while I was living in England and kept it secret until I was standing at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center. The camp was 6 days, Sun-Fri, with 2 of those days being travel days and 4 consisting of actual playing. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and we did a lot, so let's take it day by day.
Saturday/Sunday:
I spent the night Saturday at my friends down in Boston for my 8:30am flight Sunday morning. Once all the athletes travelling via airplane arrived at the San Diego airport, we took a bus to Chula Vista. At this point, I couldn't differentiate nerves and excitement, because I was definitely feeling both. I got to see a handful of my friends (shoutout Sam, Emerson, and Katie) which helped calm my nerves. The rest of the night was getting our room keys and having a Team Meeting to go over logistics and get introduced to the Eagles game model. I'm not going to lie, the game model was more in depth than what I've ever been exposed to, and is what I struggled with most.
Monday:
The first real day of camp consisted of field testing and game model install. In the morning we tested our 10m and 40m sprint, as well as a repeat speed ability test (12 x 20m sprint every :20s) to evaluate our acceleration, max speed, and speed drop off. In the afternoon we ran a Bronco (5 x 20m/40m/60m out & back). Looking at the results, I'm pretty pleased with my speed. I used to be so slow. Like, SO slow. That's something I've worked extremely hard at improving since college so it's nice to see good numbers.
A month ago I tested my Bronco before Christmas and hit a PR (5:27) which was huge. I was dissapointed in my time at camp. I know that one day of testing doesn't tell the whole story, but it's important to be consistant at the USA level. It's important to run fast even when fatigued, because everyone else was testing in the same conditions as me. Below are my testing results.
Max Acceleration - 5.21m/s (11.65mph)
Max Speed - 7.72m/s (17.26mph)
10m Time - 2.11s
40m Time - 6.24s
20m Max Velocity - 7.16m/s (16mph)
20m Min Velocity - 6.4m/s (14.31mph)
Percent mVelocity - 93%
Velocity Decrement - 11%
Bronco Time - 5:44
Tuesday:
Day two and the body is still feeling good. The fatigue wasn't anything more than it would be in a normal training week and the focus of the day was contact and collision with an emphasis on defense. It was a lot of tackle tech into pads and eventually full contact drills/ scrimmaging. I felt confident and competent going into this compared to learning the attack. During each field session, there was always some component of attack being taught. Even at Beantown, the biggest thing I struggle with is being a "playmaker" and telling the forwards where to go. Especially when the forwards are more experienced than me. It's something I've got to get over and embrace if I want to play at the national level.
Not to mention we tested our front squat and bench press 2-6 rep max in the morning after doing contact. My numbers weren't anything special, but they weren't too far off my normal. This is another coach vs athlete battle I have in my head. I've never really cared about numbers for specific lifts as long as I keep making improvements. And personally, I like being strong in "unconventional" exercises vs "traditional" lifts. They definitely need to go up though if I want to hit the standards.
Front Squat: 175lbs x3
Bench Press: 135lbs x3
Wednesday:
My body is beat up at this point. Everyone is feeling it. Wednesday is normally when teams would program an off day, but not at this camp. We split up into units in the morning to test our chin-up 2-6 rep max (I added an additional 25lbs x3 reps) and doing position specific work. That first session was the most fun I had all week. The backs were working on transitions and overloads and it felt so free. For some reason there was no percieved pressure and I just played, in my opion, the best rugby I did all week. The afternoon was more game install and I went right back to questioning myself and being timid. Not ideal. That night I watched a recent USA international match to try to make sens of everything and it ended up helping a lot. I was able to identify systems and connect some dots that I was still questioning, but too she/embarrassed to ask about.
Thursday:
Game day. In the morning we did a low key, low intensity clarity walk through (which felt like something we should've done day one) and things were finally clicking for me. Watching a recent USA match the night before helped a ton. The official warm-up started at 2:20pm with KO at 3:00pm. I got to the field at 2:00pm to do my own warm-up and start to lock in. Similar to Wednesday morning, I was feeling pretty good and just excited to play rugby. As the game progressed, I settled in a bit more but found myself making mistakes I don't normally make. I was hesitating in my tackles and still not being as direct with the forwards as I needed to be. My biggest takeaway from the game and the camp is to sharpen up my skills under pressure. It's not enought to just practice passing. I need to challenge myself more. On a positive note, I think one of my superpowers is that I'm generally pretty athletic. When I lean into that athleticism, I can make up for what I lack in skill.
Friday:
The last day was absolutely bonkers. What I didn't mention above, was that right when our warm-up started so did a fire on the mountains next to the field. We could see the smoke, flames, and fire department working to extinguish it. Heck we were even making jokes about it as we watched it grow later that night. Fast forward to 3:30am Friday morning when we got an evacuation alert followed by a text from our team manager telling us to pack our things and meet outside.
We legit were being evacuated. Luckily there were some players who had cars on site that brought us to a high school where the bus company picked us up and brought everyone to the airport. Being evacuated from a California wildfire at my first USA camp was not on my 2025 bingo card. I finally made it back to maine at a little after midnight.
Overall, the camp was truly a one of a kind experience. While I didn't perform up to my standard, I'm happy knowing that this is just the beginning. As long as I don't let up, I know in my gut that I'll have more opportunities to prove myself, and if I'm lucky, become an Eagle.
P.S. you can read the official USA Rugby article about the camp here.
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