In an early USA time match with a 7 AM ET kickoff the USA Men’s Eagles XVs upset bid fell short as Georgia, the country, won 43-30 in the 2nd match of the November international window. It was a very physical match, but Georgia proved too much in the 2nd half.

Georgia scored in the opening minutes and it looked to be a repeat of last week’s demolition by Scotland. However, the team buckled down and fought back to a 21-7 lead. That lead would slip away as Mark O’Keefe was shown a yellow putting the USA down a man for 10 minutes. Georgia would make good use of those 10 mins of a man advantage with two fast tries to tie the game. Later in the half Georgia would score another try, but miss the conversion to retake the lead at 26-21. The US would close the gap slightly before half with a penalty goal leaving the score at 26-24 in favor of Georgia at half time.

The US would open the 2nd half scoring with a 40 meter drop goal after a physical grinding 4 solid minutes of possession to retake the lead 27-26. Then Georgia put on the pressure with several key wins in the scrum though the US forward pack did hold up fairly well against Georgia’s well known forward pack winning several scrum penalties. Georgia responded to the drop goal with two unconverted tries and the US would score another penalty goal. That left the US trailing 36-30 with 10 minutes to go. It was a one score game and a converted try away from 37-36 lead. But a missed kick and chase late on gave Georgia the final possession. They would score one final try and convert it giving us the final score of 43-30.

It was a much better showing out of the US compared to being clinically taken apart and kept off the score sheet in the 85-0 demolition by Scotland’s A team last weekend. The US Eagles will close out the November international window as they visit Romania this coming Saturday. The game will kick off at 10 AM ET on Paramount+.