Taking on Samoa on Saturday won't be easy for the USA, even though the Eagles beat Manu Samoa last year, and there are a number of reasons for that.

First of all, there's that whole travel thing, and there's also that whole time zone thing. The USA team (and Canada for that matter) boarded a plane on Sunday to fly to Fiji.

That took a while.

And, in terms of time zones, there's that International Date Line. So not only did the players take a long flight all day Sunday, they actually landed late on Monday, Fiji time.

So they lost a day.

This means preparing for Saturday's game has come down to the work logged on Tuesday and Wednesday and as lock Greg Peterson said, most of the prep time comes down to one day's effort, That's why the USA team has been together for five weeks; they don't have to install too much because the players have been able to be in camp for much longer than in previous Rugby World Cup Years.

Still, Peterson warns fans that the Samoa team that lost 30-29 to the USA last year is not quite the same Samoa team all suited up in Suva. And that team's preparation hasn't been interrupted by the Date Line. Apia, Samoa is only one hour difference from Suva. So there was travel, but Samoa got a whole extra day of training.

The Eagles will have to just deal with that and perform. Against Samoa last fall, the USA was in control and then kind of gifted the game back to Samoa. That can't happen this time around. The chances that Samoa, playing what is almost a home game for them, will give up an interception and a penalty late are very slim.

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