Photo: P Yates / World Rugby
The USA made its first appearance on the international 7s stage since the Olympics in July, and the relatively young squad finished runner-up at the Fast Four tournament in Vancouver. The outing offered a look at the next crop of Eagles coming through the system, and they will have the opportunity to build on their recently acquired experience this weekend during another Fast Four tournament in Edmonton.
Jaz Gray (28) started playing rugby with the Raleigh Venom and piqued national interest during the 2017 USA Rugby DI Club National Championship. Raleigh ended up losing that DI final to Life West, but the Venom wing showed well and earned invitations to USA 15s camps. A year later, Gray began integrating into the USA 7s assemblies, and a west-coast relocation followed.
“When I first started playing 7s, I thought: Woah, this is totally different. I can’t just catch the ball and run. I’ve got to know how to pass and know how to tackle and know how to do everything,” Gray said. “But now I watch 15s games like, ‘How did I ever do that?’ I don’t think I could have a desire to go back. I love 7s now.”
Gray has been at the Chula Vista Elite Athlete Training Center for a couple of years now, but most of her experience has been contained to the practice pitch. She has represented the USA Falcons on multiple occasions, and during the Covid-19 era, Gray was selected to the Madrid tour. That trip ended early due to virus transmission concerns. So for Gray, the Fast Four was her first true international tournament, one with no hiccups.
“The feeling is different,” Gray compared resident life with game day. “You get a little more nervous, there’s a little bit more pressure – that type of thing. But to me, [Fast Four] felt just like our training days out there. It was just much louder, so things were harder to communicate. … I was just trying to be hyper-focused on the moment that I was in and not thinking about the next moment. That’s maybe the difference in training. It’s easy to be like, ‘We’re going to have this drill and we’re doing to have this drill,’ and already thinking about it. But when you’re in the game, if you’re not in the moment, then it’ll be taken away from you.”
That sense of impermanence has only been reinforced during Covid-19, and there was still some apprehension that games might not occur. Therefore, just stepping onto the pitch was one of Gray’s goals coming into the tournament.
“And just not be that hard on myself,” Gray said of other personal goals. “I think I’m really hard on myself sometimes, so just give myself a little grace. It’s O.K. to make some mistakes – so that was one goal. And I just wanted to defend well.”
Since the squad itself hasn’t had much time playing together, building some on-field chemistry was a big team goal, per Gray.
“And staying connected was a big thing,” Gray said. “As the games went on, we just wanted to continue to build off of each game. And I think we did that. We made some small mistakes but we did some great things, too, so that was good.”
The tournament started with a comeback win against Canada, which is always a nice way to start the day. The Eagles opened up against Mexico and then dropped its final round-robin match to Great Britain. Gray was solid, confident and scored four tries on the day.
“Take the mistakes we made and try not to make them again, and just building off that,” Gray said of work-ons for finals day. “And just knowing that day two is the hardest day, but already having that in your mind and not letting it overtake you.”
The energy was good, and the team was ready to make gains on Sunday.
“For me, when I see other people making big hits or breaking the line, that really gets me going,” Gray said of inspiration. “So Sui [A’au], she’s a big hitter and we found ourselves beside each other a lot on the field. So when the kickoffs were happening, she was just going up, open field and just laying them out. And I was like, ‘OK! Let’s go!’ That was getting me hyped.”
The USA faced Canada in the Sunday semifinals, and the home side took a quick two-try lead.
“We kind of got punched in the mouth against Canada but we didn’t fold,” Gray said. “We just came back and did what we had to do, put our heads down and got the work done. So that was good.”
Gray scored a try in the 22-12 win, taking a scrum ball out wide and powering past Emma Chown for the corner score.
“We don’t know how people are going to perform under the lights … so it’s just cool to see people you’ve seen train but never played with in a game,” Gray said of teammates’ performances. “Rachel [Strasdas], she came in off the bench a lot, but most of the time when she came in, she made an impact – either it was a turnover or just a good tackle, and that was cool to see under the lights. And also Sui. She’s just so good and you always see her running people over in practice but just to see her do it under the lights was cool, too. It’s just magnified here.”
The win set up a rematch against Great Britain, which took a quick two-try lead through Wales’ Jasmine Joyce. The USA remained calm and answered with two scores themselves, the second coming through a Sarah Levy hand-off to Gray.
“With the squad we have here, someone I have a good connection with would be Sarah Levy,” Gray said of teammate chemistry. “I love the way that she runs and it’s very easy to play off her. From the squad back in California … I haven’t played beside her a lot, but I would love to have more chances to play beside Naya Tapper. She’s one of the best wings in the world but she can play center, so she’s threatening with the speed, and it’s fun to play beside her.”
The USA only trailed 19-12 and the break, but Great Britain came on in the final seven minutes for the 34-12 win. Gray ended the tournament with six tries.
“Didn’t go our way but I still think we did some great things. We definitely left a lot of things out there that we can build on,” Gray said.
“We want to just to improve as a unit,” Gray looked toward this weekend. “We’re like a machine. We just want to have every part moving the way it should be moving. … I just want to be able to do my role and help anyone else improve in their role – just try to do that.”