USA coach Eddie O'Sullivan has made wholesale changes to his line-up for Friday's Pool C encounter with Australia in Wellington.
Among 14 changes, Australia-born scrum-half Tim Usasz takes the captain's armband from flanker Todd Clever, who misses out on the matchday squad altogether.
Only Saracens second row Hayden Smith retains his place in the Eagles side following the 13-6 victory over Russia. Last week's forward starters Matekitonga Moeakiola, Louis Stanfill and Nic Johnson are named on the bench.
Six of the players that were not chosen in the first 22 against Ireland and Russia were promoted to the starting line-up.
"There's quite a few changes. It's a fairly mixed bag," O'Sullivan said.
"But the guys are bringing lots of energy.
"We're not throwing a bunch of rookies in there. There are a lot of guys who were close to starting against Ireland and against Russia.
"We'll have to keep our heads, keep the tempo and stick with it."
USA: 15 Blaine Scully, 14 Colin Hawley, 13 Tai Enosa, 12 Junior Sifa, 11 Kevin Swiryn, 10 Nese Malifa, 9 Tim Usasz (capt), 8 JJ Gagiano, 7 Pat Danahy, 6 Inaki Basauri, 5 Hayden Smith, 4 Scott LaValla, 3 Eric Fry, 2 Phil Thiel, 1 Shawn Pittman.
Replacements: 16 Brian McClenahan, 17 Matekitonga Moeakiola, 18 Louis Stanfill, 19 Nic Johnson, 20 Mike Petri, 21 Roland Suniula, 22 Chris Wyles.
Date: Friday, September 23
Venue: Wellington Regional Stadium, Wellington
Kick-off: 20.30 (08.30 GMT)
Referee: Nigel Owens (Wales)
Assistant referees: Wayne Barnes (England), Vinny Munro (New Zealand)
TMO: Tim Hayes (Wales)
Comments
TheWinger says...
Its not that strong a tight five for the Wallabies. AND as we've all seen Quade Blooper folds udner pressure & does stupid things. Who knows. Maybe the Eagles will keep it close. The Wallabies aren't travelling that well.
I'll eb there cheering the Eagles on tomorrow so hopefully they do us proud.
Posted 04:55 22nd September 2011
5Lock4ward says...
Clearly Eddie O is targeting Italy as the USA's best chance of an upset given this line-up and clearly Australia is looking past the Eagles with theirs. I suppose Malifa was going to have to get on the pitch at some point. I hope the Eagles represent themselves well but here's to hoping they don't get triple digits put past them on the score board. A shame that Ngwenya won't be out there as this could've been his type of game. Also interesting to see Eddie O punish Clever after the IRB decided not to.
Posted 12:51 21st September 2011
melkdave says...
Cant blame the USA for making use of their squad after all they have had 2 hard matches so far .Heres hoping this team can pressure the wallabies and really make a game of it i hope so anyway As i have great respect for the game in the US given all the difficulties they face their .To constantly be in the top 20 nations is remarkable achivment GO EAGLES beat them wobblies LOL
Posted 12:28 21st September 2011