Former USA Eagles captain Dan Lyle believes his countrymen will be eyeing "one or two" results at this year's Rugby World Cup.
The Americans - who have lost back-to-back World Cup warm-up Tests against Canada - face tough assignments against Australia, Ireland, Italy and Russia in Pool C.
The USA have won just two of their 17 World Cup matches to date, but Lyle - who played in the RWC win over Japan in 2003 - says the Eagles will be targeting a win against the likes of Russia.
Coach Eddie O'Sullivan's team beat the Russians in the Churchill Cup.
"We will have a similar time as the last two or three World Cups," Lyle told skysports.com.
"I think the Eagles will target one or two matches to win and one or two matches to play above themselves.
"We will need to keep hold of the ball well, tackle hard and show passion, though."
The former Leicester and Bath number eight believes that the current Eagles side has some quality players in their squad - although if the USA are to improve on their World Cup record, others will need to step up to the mark.
"With Taku Ngwenya and Kevin Swiryn on the wings there is plenty of pace, while there are a couple of guys in the forwards, such as Todd Clever and Mike MacDonald, so there's some pretty dynamic guys," Lyle said.
"We've Chris Wyles, too. He is a bit like Mike Catt or Pat Howard, where he plays anywhere, so we have some guys we've experience.
"The problem is that when you have these guys playing abroad it is how they can play together collectively.
"We will need them to play their very best games and then see how others rise to the occasion."
Comments
milesman1 says...
Agreed, but if they aren't getting it out, perhaps they need to bring the wings inside and try new things, as ENG have done with Ashtion. They must harness the pace of Ngwenya if they are to get a 2 wins, let alone the 1. Let's hope they've also sorted out their kicking as well.
Posted 13:53 17th August 2011
5Lock4ward says...
If they leave Malifa at home and slot Patterson in at 10 their chances greatly improve. Wyles at 12, Emerick at 13 Scully at 15 and like he said Ngwenya and Swiryn on the wings. The problem against Canada has been the 10/12 combo's inability to get the ball out wide. Replace them both with the players I've mentioned and the Eagles improve dramatically.
Posted 13:39 16th August 2011