Rugby: Clever's Americans too smart for Russia

USA captain Todd Clever is caught by Russian wing Vladimir Ostroushko last night in New Plymouth. Photo / Mark Mitchell

USA 13 RUSSIA 6

It was hardly a war, but it was definitely cold. The USA won their eagerly awaited Rugby World Cup showdown with Russia on the frozen steppe of Stadium Taranaki, surviving a late scare as 160 minutes of rugby in four days started taking their toll.

With the Soviet-US enmity of old providing a nice prelude to a match between two rugby minnows, it was ironic that Australian Adam Byrnes provided the game's only real hostility when he took on Captain America Todd Clever late in the match.

The USA dominated, but lacked the quality to kill off the pesky Russians. In the end they were forced to scramble to prevent substitute Victor Gresev's last-minute breakout ending in a try.

The USA won 18 of 24 lineouts, six of them on Russian ball. They dominated the scrums in the first half and forced Russia to make 137 tackles as opposed to 75, yet they crossed the chalk just once.

"Our minds were in a good position but the bodies let a few of us down," Clever said. "It was tough with that short turnaround."

Given that the Americans notched just their third win in six tournaments, they were not about to quibble with how it was achieved. Coach Eddie O'Sullivan, never afraid of hyperbole, described the performance of his players over the previous 160 minutes as "extraordinary".

If you were unkind, you would say there wasn't a lot of quality to Russia's play. There was plenty of willing, but an absence of sophistication and cunning. The scrum started poorly, which was better than the lineout.

The scrum improved - both sides said they could not hear the referee's commands because of crowd noise in the first half - but the lineout didn't.

"If we won our ball in the lineouts, we could have won the game," said Russia coach Nikolay Nerush.

A significant problem was their "hands falling off", but we can assume that got lost in translation.

At times, the USA looked so dominant you feared a rout, but there was never any quit in the Russians. They made most of their tackles and piled numbers into the breakdown, which made it difficult for the USA to find rhythm.

Russia did have the honour of scoring first, before USA fullback Chris Wyles evened things up from 40m.

Then came the game's only real moment of fluidity, with the Suniula brothers, Roland and Andrew, combining to put hard-working halfback Mike Petri in near the sticks.

It then took until the 65th minute for Wyles to push the USA beyond the seven-point buffer - hardly edge-of-your-seat stuff, but then again, we've seen far stronger teams show less enterprise during the first seven days of this tournament.

Given the conditions and the minnow status of both sides, a decent crowd turned out, including a few notables.

No match thus far has been able to compete with the Eagle versus Bear for star-pulling power. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Zhukov arrived in New Plymouth on Wednesday and was yesterday joined by billionaire vodka baron Roustam Tariko and Miss Russia, Natalia Gantimurova.

Prime Minister John Key hosted Zhukov in the luxury suite at Stadium Taranaki before Vladimir Putin's confidant jetted out immediately after the game.

USA 13 (Mike Petri try; Chris Wyles 2 pen con)

Russia 6 (Yury Kushnarev pen, Konstantin Racchkov pen). HT: 9-3