Just the facts: Friday turning around U.S. rugby team

Mike Friday has turned around rugby teams before, guiding Kenya to a fifth-place finish in the Sevens World Series in 2013, a year after it placed 12th.

The first-year U.S. coach has made a similar impact on the Eagles, who are in eighth place midway through the series after finishing 13th last season.

The Americans continued to make strides Friday at the USA Sevens rugby tournament at Sam Boyd Stadium, where they went 2-0 in pool play, pounding Japan 52-12 before coming from behind to beat Portugal 19-7.

“I call Mike Friday ‘Yoda,’” said Zack Test, the Eagles’ career scoring leader and former walk-on wide receiver for Oregon. “He knows the game of sevens inside and out. He’s a master genius at this game. He pushes us and makes sure he gets everything out of us every single second.

“I have huge respect for him, and I love playing for him. All we want to do is make him proud and make this country proud.”

Test helped make the crowd of 15,294 proud in the nightcap, when he scored the only try of the second half to help seal the victory and inspire chants of “U-S-A!”

The Eagles won their pool for the first time since 2001 last week in Wellington, New Zealand, and can make it two in a row today with a win over series leader South Africa, which has won three of the past four USA Sevens tournaments in Las Vegas. The match is scheduled for 12:40 p.m.

“South Africa’s a very good side,” said Test, a former U.S. team captain. “They’re top of the table right now. We had them at their throats last weekend, but a couple mistakes and they pounced on us. We’ve got to play a pretty flawless game, and I believe we have it in us, especially in front of this crowd.”

Friday, who also coached his native England to two top-three finishes from 2003 to 2006, said the Eagles are getting better at every tournament (the USA Sevens is the fifth of nine stops in the series).

“We’ve moved from being participators on the circuit to competitors,” he said. “The tier one teams are fearing us, which is a good thing, but it means nothing if we don’t back it up on the pitch.”

The U.S. trailed Portugal 7-5 late in the first half before Perry Baker scored a try in the final seconds to give the Eagles a 12-7 lead they wouldn’t relinquish.

In a play involving two former football players, Baker took a lateral from Maka Unufe — a Provo (Utah) High School product — and sprinted across the try line.

“We were just letting them stick around too long,” Baker said. “I was trying to give them a spark going into the second half. We didn’t want to let a pretender become a contender.”

Baker, who signed with the Philadelphia Eagles as an undrafted free agent but never saw action, is the second-fastest player on the squad behind Carlin Isles, aka “the fastest man in rugby.”

Isles, a former football player and sprinter whose best time in the 100-meter dash is 10.13 seconds, scored two tries in the rout of Japan.

Friday has resisted the urge to play Baker and Isles together, but he hasn’t ruled it out.

“You’ve got to keep a racehorse fresh to run the next race,” Friday said. “It’s common practice to rest and rotate, but it would be interesting to see the two of them operate on the pitch together.”

Friday said he was impressed with the support from the crowd in his first tournament on American soil as Eagles coach.

“The energy and enthusiasm of the USA rugby population is fantastic to see,” he said. “They’re building such a great event here in Las Vegas. The crowd wants success, but the energy for the team is fantastic. It lifts the boys.

“Hopefully we can continue to grow and get better as a rugby sevens nation and we can all share in the success.”

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow him on Twitter: @tdewey33.