Meet Colin and Blaine – ahead of today’s clash with Ireland

September 11, 2011 Leave a comment

Re-post from U.S. Ambassador Huebner’s blog:

It’s my privilege today to introduce you to a couple of the USA Eagles players, on this, game day for the USA Eagles at the Rugby World Cup 2011.

Colin Hawley is one of several former California Golden Bears in the USA squad. His current club is The Olympic Club in San Francisco. Colin has also played on the HSBC Sevens World Series, competing in 3 tournaments for the USA. He made his Eagle debut in 2009, and has 4 international appearances. This will be Colin’s first Rugby World Cup.

Blaine Scully started playing rugby at UCLA, before transferring to UC Berkeley in his junior year. There he was a four-time All-American, captaining the squad in 2011, recording an impressive 2-1 series win over the New Zealand Universities. In the sevens version, Blaine captained Cal at this year’s CRC 7s tournament, following a run to the finals in 2010. He has also played on the HSBC Sevens World Series, competing in 4 tournaments for the USA.

Blaine has just graduated with a degree in History, and aims to play professional rugby overseas after the RWC. He made his Eagle debut in 2011, and has 4 international appearances. This will be his first RWC.

Colin and Blaine will both feature heavily with the Eagles as they take on Ireland, Russia, Australia and Italy, in pool play. You get a sense from these interviews how much these boys love the game of rugby.

I’d also like to refer you to our Rugby blog – USRugbyNZ.com – where we have player profiles of the entire Eagles team.

Good luck to the Eagles against Ireland today. Go Eagles.

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The USA Eagles 2011 Rugby World Cup Player Profiles

September 1, 2011 Leave a comment

The USA Eagles 2011 Rugby World Cup Player Profiles:

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James Patterson – Player Profile

August 26, 2011 1 Comment

James Paterson

Date Born: 11.4.87
Place Of Birth: Christchurch
Height: 1.85m
Weight: 98kg

Province: Southland
Provincial Caps: 32
Provincial Debut: 2008 v Wellington
Super Caps: 11
Super Debut: 2010 v Crusaders
Total Super Games: 11

A native New Zealand rugby union player, although he has dual United States and New Zealand citizenship due to his mother Deanna being a US citizen.

Paterson currently plays provincial rugby for Southland, and has just completed his second season of Super 15 with the Highlanders.

Paterson’s first introduction to rugby was in 1999 after returning from 8 years living in Budapest, Hungary where his father developed and directed an Agricultural Trading and Consultancy business. He returned to Christchurch his home town and enrolled in Medbury Intermediate School where he played for the First XV. He then enrolled at Christchurch Boys’ High School where he went on to play for the First XV in his 5th form. After four years he was on the move again to Colorado, USA where he ended up playing high school football. Paterson impressed in a short period of time, eventually achieving Colorado State recognition for the most running yards in a season as a Wide Receiver & Running Back, winning a USA Football Sports Scholarship to the Colorado School of Mines, Golden, Colorado. In the off season for football and prior to High School graduation from Pine Creek High School, Colorado Springs he along with his father, John, helped develop the Colorado Springs High School Rugby Club winning State in 2005. This team is now a frequent winner of the Colorado State High School State Championships.

In 2005 Paterson was duly selected for the USA U19 National Rugby team where he played in the U19 Rugby World Cup in South Africa and the following year Captained the USA team at the U19 Rugby World Cup in Dubai. Paterson then accepted a contract to the Canterbury Rugby Union – Crusaders in 2006 combined with a scholarship to the University of Lincoln College. He moved to Christchurch as a Crusaders wider training group team member. In 2007 he was selected for the New Zealand U21 team but suffered a minor knee injury so was unable to tour. Paterson played for the Canterbury NPC team for two seasons 2008 (one of the leading try scorers NPC)and 2009 collecting two NPC Championship titles. In 2009 he was named “One of five NZ’s most promising players” in the 75th Jubilee of the NZ Rugby Almanack. In 2010 Paterson accepted a contract to Super 14 rugby with the Highlanders. As part of the move south he also signed up with the Southland Stags in the newly named ITM rugby competition (Formally NPC). Paterson played in 11 of the 13 Highlanders games in 2010 and showed pace and skill on the wing.

Paterson looking to make his RWC debut has been selected for duty as an outside wing, on this years Eagles XV team.

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Nese Malifa – Player Profile

August 18, 2011 Leave a comment

Nese Malifa
Height: 5’10″
Weight: 187 lbs.
Position(s): Flyhalf
Current Club: Glendale
Born: September 10, 1985 in American Samoa
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
Current Residence: Long Beach, CA
Valenese Malifa is an American rugby union fly-half. He is a member of the United States national rugby union team and participated with the squad at the 2007 Rugby World Cup. Nese Malifa has played rugby since he was 17 years old. He played for Auckland and Samoa Rugby Clubs before moving to the U.S. to play for Belmont Shore. During his stint in the Pacific Islands, Malifa was a representative rugby player in Auckland in both the XV’s and Sevens game, as well as playing representative rugby in Samoa. Malifa’s talents were noticed by selectors while playing for Ponsonby and then the Eden Club in Auckland. Lesser known are Malifa’s talents in other sporting codes, as Malifa represented Samoa in Cricket. Malifa switched to his favored flyhalf position for the USA Hawks match against Canada West in the 2007 North America 4. He couldn’t have asked for a better start to his NA4 career, notching all of his teams points through two converted tries and two penalty goals from two attempts.

Playing rugby is all in the family for Nese – his father and three brothers also play the game. Valenese used to play premier Auckland club rugby for the Eden Eagles. It is considered that his twin brother Ata Malifa, was the better player at youth level. Their older brother Angelo, was the best fullback in the Eden club.

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Todd Clever – Player Profile

August 18, 2011 Leave a comment

Todd Clever
Height: 6′ 4″
Weight: 223 lbs.
Position(s): Flanker, Eightman
Current Club: Suntory Sungoliath RFC
Born: January 16, 1983
Hometown: San Jose, CA
Current Residence: Tokyo, Japan

Todd Clever is a Rugby Union player. Todd recently joined Suntory of Japan in June 2010. He previously played with the South African Lions franchise in the 2009 Super 14. Clever is the first American player to ever play in the Super 14 and scored the first try for an American in Super 14 against the Hurricanes on March 28 of 2009. Clever began playing rugby in high school (Santa Teresa) and was named to the USA U19team in 2000. In college, he played for University of Nevada, Reno and was a 3-time College All-American while there. Previously he also played for North Harbour in the NPC in New Zealand.

Clever made his international debut against Argentina in August 2003, at the age of 20. Clever was included in the USA squad for the 2007 World Cup, where he intercepted a pass against South Africa that led to Takudzwa Ngwenya scoring the USA Eagles best try of 2007. Recently Clever has become the face of the USA Eagles. He has been chosen as the team captain and has been used in countless ads highlighting the sponsorship relationship between USA Rugby and Canterbury of New Zealand. Among other accolades, Clever was named the 2008 USA Rugby Men’s Player of the Year by World Rugby Shop. Clever missed two test matches for the Eagles while playing for the Lions against the British & Irish Lions. One of the reasons he has stated for his move to Japan is that he wishes play and promote the game more in the USA, and the move will allow him to do this. Clever rejoined the national team in time for a successful Churchill’s Cup campaign that saw the Eagles clinch the Bowl by beating Georgia.  In late 2009, Clever, returning to Sevens to play for the United States, scored what was deemed the try of the day and is undoubtedly one of the tries of the season in George. In the final match for the US on the day against Scotland, Clever leaped over an injured player and physio and glided into the try zone for what amounted to a consolation try.

The Eagles qualified to play in the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand after defeating Uruguay in Florida in November 2010 Clever was a standout scoring two excellent tries to seal the victory.

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