Hi, we're the USA, we want Number One back

Late game Friday night. Australia and the USA, as the last two teams in Blue Division, get to show their stuff to the public for the first time.

USA must have decided their fans have a short attention span and scored within the first 30 seconds. Their fans were pleased but the team decided that after flying all the way to watch the games that maybe they would like a few more goals to cheer about and went off and shot 6 more to 1 in the first quarter.

Some very clear things to take out of this first 20 mins. This is 'Team USA', they are not giving you time to warm up, they are not going to let you make mistakes and if you let them make a fast break then they are going to score on you.

We, as Australia, looked a bit shocked and nervous at the start. In the first quarter there were 9 face offs. We broke early on five of them. Our sliding on their fast breaks was poor and when we did have the ball in attack we seemed rather static.

The Australian team for the rest of the game looked more settled but to be honest never really looked like bringing the game back. In the third quarter the scoring was kept to 3 goals to 2 which doesn't show that the USA team knew that with their current lead that they could control the tempo and spent at least 5 mins of that quarter slowing the game down with some 2 2 2 type plays.

Why?

Because they could.

So, with a final score of 21 to 5 where does this leave both teams?

USA is clearly a very class act and clearly want their number one ranking back from the Canadians. The 7 goal first quarter probably reflects more on Australian mistakes then US skill but there were also times later in the game where the Americans were not completely in top gear and could of found more goals if they needed to. Obtaining 20 plus goals in a game, every game, is clearly within this team.

Australia, to their discredit, didn't start well. In their defence, international lacrosse doesn't allow many opportunities to face teams of this calibre and unfortunately as mentioned before, teams like the USA don't give warm up time. There were some annoying things like the early breaking on the face offs and some bad stick chasing against US players who could dodge with their eyes closed. We did move the ball rather sharply and while we didn't get off many good outside shots, we did set up some impressive looking feeds for inside shots and goals.

At this stage personally I can see the US going undefeated to the win the gold while Australia has a good chance of beating Canada, at least in the round robin stage.

July 17 games in Blue Division will be Japan v Germany, Australia v England and USA v Canada. My picks are Japan, Australia and USA.