O'Sullivan ready for Wales test

Coach Eddie O’Sullivan believes the USA will be under more pressure against Wales tomorrow than they faced against his former side Ireland last week.

After Ireland won 27-10 against a resilient American side last week to hand O’Sullivan a losing start to his tenure, the USA face another side at the weekend understrength due to the Lions tour of South Africa.

O’Sullivan is himself deprived of up to 10 players through club duties in Europe and South Africa, injuries and work commitments and will send out a side featuring just two professionals in Saracens duo Chris Wyles at full-back and lock Hayden Smith having made four changes from the team which started against Ireland.

“I’m very happy with last week’s performance but we need to step up a notch again this week,” O’Sullivan said.

“I think this Wales team are a very fast side and it was their first hit out against Canada last week so they will be taking it up a notch again this week and it’s a big challenge for us.

“There were times when we lost our shape on both sides of the football but I think overall it’s happening now.

“Having said that I think we’ll come under more pressure this week to do that. The question is can we step it up again.

“Considering we’ve made some more changes I’m pretty confident that we can take it up again this week and we should be okay.”

O’Sullivan said he was also pleased with the way his new squad and the new faces in it were gelling together in a short amount of time.

“The new faces have fitted in very well, they’ve worked very hard since we only got together a week ago last Monday,” he said. “We’ve spent a lot of time trying to get on the same page and the good thing last week was that I think, by and large, we achieved that.”

With a Churchill Cup campaign against group rivals Argentina A and England Saxons coming up in the next 10 days before home and away World Cup qualifying legs against Canada at the start of July, O’Sullivan has hit the ground running and needs his players to do the same.

“We had eight new caps last week, six starting, and they all did very well,” the Irishman added.

“We’ve got a lot of games coming up, seven games in seven weeks, so it means we’ve got to move players around.

“We’ve got a Churchill Cup game on Wednesday so there’s a fair bit of shuffling around to be done.

“At the same time we’re trying to put two big performances together against big teams like Ireland and Wales, so there’s a lot to do.”