By Neil Morris From WralSportsfan

Men and women’s rugby teams from across the Americas are in Cary playing in the NACRA tournament at WakeMed, Saturday, June 13, 2015. 18
By Neil Morris

During the famous boxing match in the film “Cool Hand Luke,” the initial fanatic fervor of onlookers as Dragline (played by George Kennedy) knocks down Luke (played by Paul Newman) eventually morphs into forlorn resignation as Luke keeps getting up just so Dragline can pummel him into a pulp.

The near-tropical heat of Cary, North Carolina proved an oasis for American jingoism at Day 1 of the North American and Caribbean Rugby Association (NACRA) Sevens Championships. However, with the USA Rugby Sevens Men and Women’s teams winning their five games by a combined score of 273-0, the ubiquitous chants of “USA, USA” should have transmuted into pleas to, “Just stay down, Luke.”

Saturday’s group stage involved simultaneous play on the main stadium and Koka Booth stadium at WakeMed Soccer Park. Not coincidentally, all games involving the U.S. and Canada took place in the main stadium.

The USA men played only two matches on Saturday, as it and the rest of Group A saw their group stage games reduced once the team from St. Vincent had to withdraw, reportedly after being unable to enter the country due to a visa snafu. The USA men trounced Barbados 54-0 before thumping previously undefeated Mexico 50-0. The USA men will finish group play with expected win over Jamaica tomorrow morning before their semifinals contest around noon.

Meanwhile, the USA women were even more overwhelming. A 45-0 win over Jamaica was a mere precursor to a whopping 74-0 shacklacking of Barbados. The USA women completed their group play with a 50-0 walk over the Cayman Islands. After a presumptive win over eighth-seed Barbados tomorrow morning in the knockout stage, the USA women will play their semifinal match around 12:30 p.m.

Saturday’s marquee matches were all lopsided, including those involving the Canadian men’s team, which won all three of its games by a combined score of 134-7. Fortunately, with normal rugby sevens matches lasting only 14 minutes—divided into two 7-minute halves—the blowouts weren’t prolonged.

The search for competitive balance necessarily led to match-ups between Caribbean competitors, even if the quality of their play waned. On the men’s side, Jamaica kicked off today’s tournament with a 28-26 squeaker over Barbados. And in Saturday’s final contest, the men from the Bahamas nipped Trinidad & Tobago 14-12 for their only win of the day.

The Cayman Islands women got their only win with a 12-5 result over winless Barbados. Similarly, the Guyana women notched their only victory with a 21-12 victory over the Bahamas.

Otherwise, the primary foe for the U.S. and the other eight countries—collectively comprising 17 teams—were stifling summer temperatures that hovered in the mid-90s. Less than an hour into today’s games, a trio of male competitors from Guyana were spotted dragging a 32-gallon trash can full of ice from Lot C of WakeMed Soccer Park several hundred yards away to the embassy row of tents aligned along the parking lot outside Field 3, where teams sought shelter between matches.

Rugby sevens has been added to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the first time rugby in any form has been included in the Olympics since 1924. The men and women team winners at this weekend’s NACRA Sevens Championships will automatically qualify for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

But while this weekend’s tournament was procedurally necessary, the air of inevitability hung as heavy as the humidity. For the USA men, the NACRA Sevens title will likely come down to another clash with Canada, each team having split victories in their last two Sevens Series meetings. Meanwhile, with all respect to the undefeated Mexico women, the main obstacle for the USA women’s team tomorrow will be making sure their team bus arrives to the park on time.

For more on this story go to: http://www.wralsportsfan.com/usa-rugby-men-women-blank-opponents-/14710062/#SbWLUMZHlgIgUPTH.99