TAC Day 4 - Britain Outplays Revos in Game 2

It has been 22 years since the men of Great Britain and the USA Revolution played Aussie Rules football.  The Revos won both matches in 2001 and 2002, and won both.

It took two decades for the Bulldogs to flip the script, and they did so with authority.  Pinning the Revos back from the opening 30 seconds, Great Britain picked apart the Revos from the second quarter on and despite playing bravely in the back half and getting their chances forward, the Doggies were 47-26 victors at the 2024 AFL TransAtlantic Cup.

It was the coolest day of the four so far in Toronto, and a light wind was blowing towards the city end.  After Andy Walkden blitzed the Revos with a goal 20 seconds in, Julian David answered with a goal of his own to draw the scores level.  It was a chaotic first term that saw Mark McClure and Dan Livy also tally majors, and when the dust settled, the Revolution held a 19-14 lead.

Term number two saw the Bulldogs go to the fore, testing Max DePina, Derrick Shotwell and Jevon Mason time and time again, and Sam Murphy continuing to dominate the hitouts.  The GB defense did well to keep the Revos off the board, and after adding another major, they went into the break up 23-19.

Now with the wind in the third term, the Revos would face their biggest test and despite Rob Munn and Erik Anderson having more sparkling performances in the back, it wasn’t enough to prevent another two goals from being added to the scoreline.  Up 36-20 going into the final twenty minutes, America’s defense withstood the pressure allowing just one more goal from six scoring shots, and a Michael Linehan goal in the dying seconds.  A rough day at the office, but there won’t be much time to recover ahead of Wednesday’s pool stage finale against Ireland.

“We maybe dominated in the ruck tap positions, but they recovered pretty well,” said TASMANIAN player of the game, Daniel Livy.  “We did our best efforts to try and eliminate that but there were two on ones all across the ground and couldn’t keep up.  Gotta work on a couple of things ahead of the next round.”

Still, there were some positives from the match and from the first two games that Livy touched on. “The intent, the overall attack on the footy has been incredible,” Livy said of his team’s progress so far. “We just have to keep working on that and see what happens against Ireland.”

As it turns out, it just wasn't a good day for the three Americas' teams, as Canada went down to Ireland 82-27, and France accounted for Colombia 59-16.  Thus, the US's win over France on Day 1 is what is keeping them atop the Group A ladder, and has them in good position to clinch a playoff spot.  They can do so with a draw or a win against the Warriors at 9:30am EDT / 6:30pm PDT on Wednesday.  Even if they should lose, they would need Colombia to defeat Great Britain and do so by a large margin to upend Kyle Strenski's team.

Goals:
USA: Linehan, Livy, David, McClure
GBR: Coughlan, Welton, Evans, Walkden, Lewey, Hodgson

Standings After Round 2