Nate Ebner won’t fly home from Rio with a medal around his neck, but the New England Patriots safety will carry back some valuable lessons learned during the United States rugby sevens team’s disappointing showing at the 2016 Olympics.
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Folau Niua scored the first try of the match for the USA, much to the dismay of the overwhelmingly pro-Brazilian crowd.
Last night, Ryan Seacrest invited USA women’s rugby sevens player Jillion Potter to teach actor Matthew McConaughey the basics of rugby sevens.
His father, Jeff, was the owner of an auto reclamation business in Springfield and tragically killed trying to defend it from a robbbery. Ebner not only made USA Rugby’s team as what is believed to be the first active National Football League player to compete in the Olympics, he got on the scoresheet in Rio.
Team USA commenced its Olympic schedule on Tuesday afternoon against Argentina in group play. That left the US team, which also included one-time Lions practice squad player Carlin Isles, with a 1-2 record in pool play, which wasn’t good enough to advance to the medal round.
But teammate Maddison Hughes missed the following conversion kick that would have cut Fiji’s lead to three and the game finished seconds later.
“I appreciate it”, he said.
“Ultimately we gave everything we had to this no regrets at all”.
The Fijians went on to edge New Zealand 12-7 in the quarterfinals and remain on course to win the country’s first ever Olympic medal.
Ebner broke loose for a score on the ensuing kickoff when he took a pitch from a teammate and raced down the right side of the field untouched for the game’s final tally. They’ll face Japan, the most surprising team at the tournament, in the semifinals.
After two more classification matches for ninth-12th matches on Thursday, he’ll switch gears again from being an Olympian to thinking about his day job.
“I don’t know”, he said. The U.S. already defeated Brazil 26-0 last night.
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RIO LOOK CRITICIZED: The head of the host broadcasting service for the Olympics says Brazilian organizers have failed to dress up the venues for the Rio Games. “I’m disappointed for the lads and I’m disappointed for the United States of America people because we’ve got a great game here, and the USA’s embracing it”.
