Try time at the 'Cake Tin'
USA Eagles loose forward JJ Gagiano – fresh off his try-scoring feat against the Wallabies on Friday – reports back from ‘Camp America’ at the 2011 World Cup in New Zealand.
It’s been a crazy few days!
We enjoyed our time in Wellington; a vibrant city with quite a lot to do. It is very windy, however, and few of the boys were a little nervous on take off and landing.
I was very fortunate enough to be named in the starting XV against Australia – a great opportunity. The ‘Cake Tin’ is a great stadium and the atmosphere was amazing and very loud. It had been blowing all week and we were fortunate enough to have a windless and sublime evening for what was going to be a great game of footy.
We did well in the first half going into the break 22-5 down after having a lot of possession and territory. I scored a try off a scrum in the right-hand corner and still can’t believe what happened – I am extremely chuffed!
Things got away from us in the second half and even though we battled valiantly we lost 67-5. Against a top-class side like the Aussies you make one mistake and you find yourself under your own poles pretty quickly… It was a great learning experience for a team like us, however, and will definitely help us to get better.
The support from all the fans both in New Zealand and abroad has been nothing short of inspiring! Thank you.
We are now in Nelson for our last pool game against a strong and well-drilled Italian side; if we finish third in our pool we get automatic qualification into the next World Cup! So it is a massive game.
As you would expect, everybody is looking forward to it… It should be a good game.
Then the World Cup is over – what an amazing, fun and phenomenal experience it has been. We are hoping for the icing on the cake on Tuesday night!!
Cheers for now,
JJ
* Follow the USA Eagles online at www.USARugby.org and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/usarugby
* UCT loose forward – and Varsity Cup product – JJ Gagiano made his USA Eagles debut in November 2008. Follow his Rugby World Cup story on rugby365.com!
* Read JJ’s previous diary entry, HERE!
