American youth rugby’s premier sevens tournament returns this weekend, with the North American Invitational 7s tournament kicking off this Friday in Salt Lake City, Utah. A total of 75 boys teams and 44 girls teams covering U14, U16, U18, and U23 age groups will compete over the course of two days at the beautiful Salt Lake Regional Athletic Complex.

Where do you start? Any of the All Blacks are worthy of keeping an eye on, but there are some interesting back stories to some of the selections.

A week after going toe to toe with England at Twickenham, the Eagles now head to the Emerald Isle, where they’ll take on Ireland at Lansdowne Road. The matchup will mark the second time our young American squad will be taking on a titan of World Rugby in a six-day span, but more importantly will be a true measuring stick for how far we’ve come as a true rugby nation.

As part of the 2023 Rugby World Cup qualifier, Samoa and Tonga will meet in a pair of matches. The first will take place on July 10 and the second will be played on July 17.  Samoa took a 38-21 loss to the Maori All Blacks last weekend. Tonga took a very humbling 102-0 defeat at the hands of the powerful New Zealand All Blacks later that same day. Now the teams will face off against one another.

Head coach Gary Gold has made four changes to the starting XV with three new faces on the bench as the USA Men’s XVs National Team faces Ireland for the first time since 2018 on Saturday.

The ever-mercurial Wallabies play hosts to a resurgent France in what should prove a scintillating three-game series down under.