The important figure from Saturday night is not 30-10, a scoreline that recalled last September when Italy knocked the US out of the Rugby World Cup at the group stage by a 17-point margin.

It is 17,214: a record home crowd for the US team. If the knowledge that yesterday was a portentous night serrated the American sense of regret at the outcome, at least they could savor the occasion. The moment was not seized, but it existed, and that mattered most. Deposit this event in the growing bank of evidence indicating that rugby in the US is rolling towards the mainstream.

This time next year, Ireland will visit for a test match; Scotland is coming in 2014. USA Rugby, the governing body, is pondering whether to host the Irish in an NFL-sized arena on the theory that a bigger venue will entice an even greater attendance.

They will be keen to return to sweaty, roisterous Texas.

While Houston Dynamo was losing to Montreal Impact in Quebec on Saturday, their BBVA Compass Stadium's downtown location was supplying ample boozing options for fans who saw Mike Tolkin's team compete well against superior opponents in the first half but lose their focus – and two of their players to red cards – after the break, when Italy were sharper and smarter.

Might as well have eliminated another six men: it's the downsized version of the sport that offers the most obvious potential for rapid growth. The US are the reigning Olympic champions in rugby, a boast that loses some of its sheen when you consider that the sport has not featured at an Olympic games since 1924. But the sevens format will debut at Rio 2016, and a medal is a realistic ambition, while it's impossible to imagine the US scaring rugby's traditional powers in the fifteen-man game for at least a decade.

The Olympics will bring fame, funding and the chance to produce a team successful enough to seduce newcomers. Vitally, television coverage is expanding and a 2010 survey by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association found that rugby was the fastest-growing team sport in the US.

There's something stirring here, in a country with a gluttonous appetite for sport. Rugby's advocates argue its principles mesh perfectly with the American disposition: individual talent in a team context, fair play, and respect in an aggressive, dynamic and tough environment.

Tolkin, the impressive head coach, was an English teacher in Manhattan until taking the job in February. The Eagles' captain is Todd Clever, a mellow 29-year-old from San Jose with long wavy hair who looks more like a surfer than a flanker. He plays in Japan. As a kid, he said, "we had about ten teams in northern California. We had to drive about two-and-a-half, three hours to a game. Now it's grown so much there's ten leagues in northern California with ten or twelve teams in each. So it's grown huge."

USA Rugby has around 115,000 members, and their CEO, Nigel Melville, says that more than 750,000 kids are playing non-contact "rookie rugby".

"We started it to create a steady flow of players coming through to the senior parts of the game. Yes, we'll get people coming across from other sports, but we also need to create our own," said the former England captain and ex-London Wasps director of rugby.

"In the states, every single kid who plays sport, their parents know what the endgame is. It could be a college scholarship, a pro contract, an Olympian. We weren't offering any of those."

By 2016, Melville hopes for a hat-trick.

"We haven't got a professional option yet, but that's on the way," he said. "Probably two or three years. Could be 2013, but I doubt it. Could take another year, say 2014. You've got to grow realistically."

The US has a gluttenous appetite for sport, and American rugby players like Scott LaValla, who currently plays for Stade Français, are hoping to help fill it. Photograph: Mike Hewitt/Getty Images

This sounds ambitious, but on a continent with a professional lacrosse league, why shouldn't there be room for rugby, especially during the long NFL close-season?

"Soccer has tried to bring in the culture of soccer around the world, tried to make it like the English Premier League in terms of the way the stadium's set up, the way supporters act, whatever. We're not trying to do that. We think it can be designed in the shape of an American sport, with conferences, the way it's televised. You have to appeal to what they understand, but explain to them, this is also around the world," said Melville.

He added that patience and prudence are essential. "If you look at all the research, all the leagues that have succeeded, all the leagues that have folded, you see a general pattern emerge which says, don't go in before you've got the money and don't do it until you have everything set up for two to three years to keep it going. If you jump the gun, if you get it wrong, you're done for 10 years."

It's tempting to don seer's robes and speculate on the state of the NFL in a decade. The most apocalyptic vision foretells a world where the league has been bankrupted by compensation payments to concussed former players. It's less of a stretch to think that football might decline at school and college level because of parents' health concerns and spiralling insurance costs.

Given the perception that rugby is more likely to serve up cauliflower ear than mashed brain, Melville believes rugby can exploit football's head injury crisis. "A lot of it concerns technique. When you watch the way American footballers tackle now, and the old grainy tapes, they tackle differently," he said.

"They tackle with their heads and they use their head as a weapon and it's causing problems. In our sport you don't wear a helmet, and that makes you more sensitive about where you put your head. We use our arms a lot more. I think it's proved that we don't hit as hard, though we may hit more times. I think there is an opportunity there. We are a safer sport."

Still, big hits were the plays most likely to inspire last night's crowd into a bloodthirsty roar of "U-S-A! U-S-A!" Fans respected the passing and relished the collisions. "When they watch it they see the contact and like it. They like the hits, that's very much American sport. They like athleticism, seeing good athletes do superhuman things. And they like to see people who are extremely skilful," said Melville.

Football-obsessed Texas is the third-largest rugby-playing region in the US, after the north-east and California. David McPhail, the president of the Texas Rugby Union, believes rugby appeals as a sport with fewer pauses, more playing time and a more varied athletic challenge than football. "It involves everybody, it's faster-flowing, no specialists," he said. Plenty of ball touches, not much standing around. And it can offer a refuge to football's outcasts.

"People will always go where the money is. It's human nature, people follow the money if they have a choice. So they'll try the NFL. It excludes so early. You can be excluded from football and high school or college and you're done. With us you can carry on playing until you don't want to play any more," said Melville.

"There's a lot of those footballers whose NFL dreams have been shattered who could probably come across and play rugby in the Olympics. Our biggest worry at the moment is that two of our players were drafted into the NFL so they're going the other way." Hayden Smith signed with the New York Jets this year, and Nate Ebner joined the New England Patriots.

Melville had dinner with Houston Texans officials on Wednesday night. "I'm talking to people from the NFL. They're really interested in the game. We do believe there is some sort of connection. I'd like to have some relationship with them," he said.

How about a bid to host the 2023 World Cup? "That'd be great. Certainly we've got the facilities and the passion to do it. I can see the final being played in an NFL stadium – Reliant [in Houston], those sort of stadiums. How good would that be? England versus New Zealand at Reliant would be pretty decent," he said. It was a slice of very English understatement from the man seeking to make rugby all-American, all across America.