Weakened Wales too strong

Big win in Connecticut

Wales, weakened by the absence of ten top players on the Lions' tour, were still far too strong for the USA whom they beat 77-3 in Connecticut on Saturday before a crowd of just under six thousand.

Wales started as they had finished in the Six Nations, racing onto the attack.

Sweeney was close to scoring in the opening minutes but was over soon afterwards when Ryan Jones broke.

Craig Morgan was next before the USA scored their only points of the match via a penalty goal by Australian-born Mike Hercus who will be playing his club rugby in Wales next season.

The closest the USA came to a try was just before the end when Paul Emerick tapped a penalty but lost the ball in reaching for the goal-line.
 
Wales came straight back from the kick off and Mike Phillips sent Robinson over for a try. From then on it was one-way traffic. By half-time they led 30-3.

Early in the second half prop Ben Broster came on for his first cap for Wales, as did Matthew Rees and Tal Selley who celebrated his debut with a try.

Wales coach Mike Ruddock admitted handed out five new caps, four from the replacements bench, after being forced to make wholesale changes to the side that beat Ireland in March.

"In many ways this was the perfect scenario, a good win under our belts and we have managed to try out a number of new combinations," said Ruddock.

"So we are all very pleased with how things went. The boys went out there and gave a thoroughly professional performance both with the scoreline and the new players. There were a lot of positives for us.

"I think we can still improve, especially with our discipline. I felt at times we put ourselves under pressure by conceding too many penalties. But you have to be generally very pleased with a 77-3 win in international rugby."

Wales set down the building blocks for the record win over USA Eagles with four tries in the opening 20 minutes.

Ruddock said: "The message to the players was to go out there and start the game with a bang. We wanted to raise the tempo of the game, get the first score and build from there. We did exactly that.

"The guys like playing that brand of rugby, they enjoy it and you could see everyone wanted to get their hands on the ball.

"We paid USA the respect they deserve by picking a strong side. They probably suffered a little from travelling back from Japan this week but I don't want to take anything away from our players, who were superb.

"We wanted to get the tour off to a wining start and then bring on some of the younger players from a position of strength. We need to bring through as many players as possible ahead of what is going to be a very important year for us next season with facing the three southern hemisphere teams and the defence of our Six Nations title.

"First we have to think about Canada next week who, in fairness, I think will be a tougher challenge. Results have shown that they are generally better than America and they will have had more time to recover from travelling back from Japan."

Meanwhile Eagles coach Tom Billups said: "Wales were simply bigger, faster, stronger and more skilful than us which is what you would expect from the Six Nations champions.

"We had to play out of our skins to compete but we didn't in the opening salvo and the game got away from us from then on."

The scorers:

For the USA:
Pen: Hercus

For Wales:
Tries: Sweeney, Craig Morgan, Robinson, Kevin Morgan, Jon Thomas, Charvis 2, Phillips, Selley, Pugh
Cons: C Sweeney 11

The teams eams:

United States: Francois Viljoen; Mike Palefau, Paul Emerick, Albert Tuipulotu, David Fee; Mike Hercus, Doug Rowe; Mike MacDonald, Matt Wyatt, Chris Osentowski, Alec Parker, Brian Surgener, Andrew Ryland, Todd Clever, Kort Schubert (captain).
Replacements: Mark Griffin, Mike French, Mike Mangan, Tony Petruzzella; Peter Galicz, Salesi Sika, Matt Sherman.

Wales: 15 Kevin Morgan,14 Rhys Williams, 13 Mark Taylor (captain), 12 Ceri Sweeney, 11 Craig Morgan, 10 Nicky Robinson, 9 Mike Phillips, 8 Ryan Jones7 Colin Charvis, 6 Jonathan Thomas, 5 Luke Charteris , 4 Brent Cockbain, 3 Adam Jones, 2 Matthew Rees, 1 Duncan Jones
Replacements: 16 Rhys Thomas, 17 Ben Broster, 18 Ian Gough, 19 Richie Pugh, 20 Andrew Williams, 21 Matthew Watkins, 22 Tal Selley

Referee: Craig Joubert (South Africa)