USA captain Tomasin backs squad to seize moments at SVNS Bordeaux finale

The USA will carry hard-won momentum into the HSBC SVNS World Championship finale in Bordeaux on June 5-7, after closing out the Valladolid leg with consecutive wins — the last of them a nervy 28-21 defeat of Germany that secured ninth place.

Captain Stephen Tomasin was on the sidelines directing traffic in the dying seconds as Germany, through Maximilian Heid, threatened to level the match. With 20 seconds remaining, then 15, then 10, Tomasin urged his teammates to hold their shape. They retrieved possession and kicked the ball into touch to seal a result that, in the context of a difficult World Championship campaign, felt significant.

“It’s been a tough World Championship for us. We didn’t come out of Hong Kong with a win, we lost the first game here,” Tomasin told RugbyPass in Valladolid. “To get a win last and then to build on that and get another one today, we’re just moving in the right direction.”

The USA had entered the Valladolid event ranked 12th on the World Championship standings following the Cathay/HSBC Hong Kong Sevens last month. Their pool stage in Spain brought further setbacks — a 26-21 loss to Spain decided by Angel Bozal’s 15th-minute score on the final play, a defeat to Fiji, and a one-score loss to France, the reigning Olympic champions. All three matches were tight, a fact Tomasin was keen to contextualise.

“The France game was a one-score game, even the Fiji game was close. That’s just the level that the World Series is at right now. It’s a game of moments,” he said. “We are not far off at all — it’s just learning to win more of those moments than lose them.”

The Americans recovered from the pool exits with a ninth-place semi-final win over Great Britain, with Tomasin himself changing the game through a double. That form carried into the Germany match, giving the squad back-to-back wins for the first time in the championship.

“A lot of emotion there and it just feels really good to get out of the weekend with back-to-back wins and looking forward to the next one,” Tomasin added.

Despite the upturn, the USA still sit in the bottom four of the overall standings heading into Bordeaux, leaving them with a steep points deficit to overcome. Tomasin acknowledged there is still ground to cover — “We’ve made huge strides since Hong Kong but we still have quite a bit to go” — but the mood in the camp appears to be one of belief rather than anxiety, with the captain insisting his side has nothing to lose in the season finale.