The game against the Saints was the second of the Eagles’ three-match tour which finishes against Doncaster on Saturday. Although the Saints were comfortable winners, running in 12 tries, coach Low said that it was a worthwhile experience for the American youngsters.

“Our goal for the tour was to come here and learn,” he said. “We’ve got a team that’s been playing rugby for a couple of years, and we’ve had some tough fixtures in Bedford, Northampton and Doncaster. We’ve learnt a lot against the Saints! Hopefully we’ll get some video footage and take it from there. Hopefully we can develop some of these players for the future.

“For a lot of the players it’s the first time they’ve left the USA. It’s an opportunity for them to experience rugby in a different country and in a country that plays rugby as a top class sport. So this is good for them, to come to a place like Northampton with the Franklin’s Gardens stadium. They spent the first hour just wandering gob-smacked around the stadium!

“There’s nothing like Northampton for rugby in the US and it was good for the players to experience playing here. In the US players sometimes have to change by the side of the pitch and put the posts up before a game!”

Low is originally from England and a former coach at Bedford, and he arranged the fixture against the Saints through Academy coach Ali Hepher. He said that it is an exciting time to be involved in youth rugby on the other side of the Atlantic.

“Rugby is probably the fastest growing youth sport in the US,” he commented. “The challenge we have obviously is that the kids see other sports such as basketball and American football as the primary sports, because they’re on television. But youth rugby is growing all over the US and it’s gradually creeping down into younger age groups.”

The US squad that took on the Saints included players from all over the States. With 3,000 miles separating the west coast from the east, just getting the best young players together on a regular basis is a problem, says Low.

“We have kids from California, Texas, Florida, and so on. We’ve only had this team together for two sessions. We had them once for a weekend in Florida and now this tour, which is the second session. Just pulling them together when the country’s so vast is the problem, as it is for US Rugby. Hopefully we’ll overcome that with trips like this when we can have 10 days of team building and experience.”

The US Eagles played the Junior Saints Academy, sponsored by LIO.