When USA Rugby’s Eagles suffered a 57-14 blowout defeat against Ireland in Dublin last November, the result was no surprise. Ireland enters the Rugby World Cup ranked No. 1 in the world, and the USA lags behind at No. 13. But the Eagles’ sports science team, lead by strength and conditioning coach Huw Bevan, used technology—both the GPS data collected from each player’s STATSports device and the match video—to leverage the loss as a lesson.
That analysis became a training benchmark for the underdog Eagles to understand the physical demands of playing against elite teams. USA begins its Pool C play against world heavyweights England (No.