Five of the players that helped the USA qualify for the Olympic Games in Rio next year have been selected for the Eagles' RWC 2015 training squad.

Only a matter of days after helping USA qualify for Rio 2016, Danny Barrett, Andrew Durutalo, Folau Niua, Zack Test and Chris Wyles have been named in the Eagles’ 50-man Rugby World Cup training squad.

All five were part of the sevens squad that defeated Canada to win last weekend's regional Olympics qualifying tournament, the NACRA Sevens Championship.

Wyles is a veteran of the 15s game having played in 45 tests and two Rugby World Cups for the Eagles as well as enjoying a highly-decorated club career in England with Saracens.

Barrett, Durutalo and Niua have 19 caps between them in 15s, while Test, a mainstay of the USA sevens team, is as yet uncapped in the longer format of the game.

Brett Thompson, another of the USA Sevens regulars, is also included in the squad despite not featuring in the NACRA qualifier in Cary, North Carolina.

Strength in depth

Mike Tolkin’s squad is comprised of 28 domestic-based players and 20 overseas professionals.

Inaki Basauri of Tarbes and Louis Mulholland at the University of Bath are the only two players who have not been in some sort of Eagles or USA Selects assembly in the past 18 months.

Mulholland, the England-based scrum-half, has risen through the USA pathway with the Boys High School All-Americans and most recently with the Junior All-Americans in the World Rugby U20 Trophy 2015 qualifier series with Canada in March, while Basauri joined an assembly in Georgia, USA in the autumn of 2013.

“In the last World Cup cycle, we didn’t have nearly the same level of depth as we do this go-round,” Tolkin said. “It gives you a little bit of relief to think that, if someone were to go down or wasn’t playing well, there are some quality choices that you can make experience-wise.”

The Eagles will assemble in Santa Clara on 11 July ahead of the first two rounds of the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup at Avaya Stadium in San Jose and Bonney Field in Sacramento. The squad for the USA’s third year in the competition, which will run through to the finals day in Burnaby, Canada, on 3 August, will be announced on Monday.

Troy Hall, Scott LaValla, Toby L’Estrange, AJ MacGinty, Al McFarland, Ronnie McLean, Mike Petri, Thretton Palamo, Hayden Smith, Phil Thiel and Wyles – as well as three players from Glendale Raptors and nine from Seattle Saracens – ended their club season’s with championships.

“It’s always beneficial to have guys play in the best possible games at the end of the season,” Tolkin said. “The more we can get those guys playing high-level games closer to when we next meet is always a good thing.”

USA will get an early look at RWC 2015 Pool B rivals Japan and Samoa during the Pacific Nations Cup, which will also see them play against Tonga before a final match dependent on tournament seeding.

The Eagles will rest between the final match day and their next assembly date of 15 August, when the squad will prepare for domestic matches against English Premiership side Harlequins and Australia in Philadelphia and Chicago respectively.

USA Eagles RWC 2015 training squad: Danny Barrett, Inaki Basauri, Chris Baumann, Todd Clever, Tom Coolican, John Cullen, Cameron Dolan, Andrew Durutalo, Zach Fenoglio, LeMoto Filikitonga, Eric Fry, Troy Hall, Seamus Kelly, Olive Kilifi, Niku Kruger Titi Lamositele, Ben Landry, Scott LaValla, Toby L'Estrange, Chad London, Samu Manoa, Tim Maupin, Al McFarland, AJ MacGinty, Ronnie McLean, Matekitonga Moeakiola, Louis Mulholland, Takudzwa Ngwenya, Folau Niua Thretton Palamo, Zach Pangelinan, Greg Peterson, Mike Petri, John Quill, Blaine Scully, Robbie Shaw, Mike Shepherd, Hayden Smith), Louis Stanfill, Tim Stanfill, Kyle Sumsion, Andrew Suniula, Shalom Suniula, Zack Test, Phil Thiel, Brett Thompson, Matt Trouville, Tai Tuisamoa, Nick Wallace, Chris Wyles.