Flyhalf AJ MacGinty contributed 21 points as the USA beat Russia 25-0 in California on Saturday.

The visitors were their own worst enemy as they gifted the USA with a string of penalties in the first half. MacGinty obliged and gave his side a 15-0 lead at the break. Russia made a better go of it in the second half, but the Eagles were just too strong.

MacGinty opened the scoring in the 10th minute, before slotting a second penalty goal four minutes later. He added a third just before the half-hour mark and kicked two more late in the first half, including one in deep in extra time.

The flyhalf then slotted his fifth penalty just four minutes after the restart. Russia put up a stronger performance in the second stanza and kept the USA at bay until the 66th minute when wing Mike Te’o held on to an inside pass from MacGinty and broke through the Russian defence to score the only try of the match.

USA – Try: Mike Te’o. Conversion: AJ MacGinty. Penalties: MacGinty (6).

USA – 15 Mike Holder, 14 Mike Te’o, 13 Thretton Palamo, 12 Shalom Suniula, 11 Blaine Scully (c), 10 AJ MacGinty, 9 Nate Augspurger, 8 Cam Dolan, 7 Tony Lamborn, 6 Todd Clever, 5 Nate Brakeley, 4 James King, 3 Chris Baumann, 2 James Hilterbrand, 1 Titi Lamositele. Subs: 16 Joe Taufete’e, 17 Ben Tarr, 18 Angus MacLellan, 19 Harry Higgins, 20 Langilangi Haupeakui, 21 Stephen Tomasin, 22 Chad London, 23 Luke Hume.

Russia – 15 Ramil Gysin, 14 Denis Simplikevich, 13 Dmitry Gerasimov, 12 Cyril Golosnitsky, 11 Vasily Artemyev (c), 10 Yury Kushnarev, 9 Rushan Yagudin, 8 Anton Rudoi, 7 Paul Butenko, 6 Victor Gresev, 5 Denis Antonov, 4 Andrey Garbuzov, 3 Eugene Pronenko, 2 Yevgeny Matveyev, 1 Alexey Volkov.
Subs: 16 Hasanov Nasir, 17 Azamat Bitiev, 18 Vladimir Podrezov, 19 Eugene Elgin, 20 Daniel Chegodaev, 21 Alexey Shcherban, 22 Eugene Kolomiitsev, 23 Anton Ryabov.

Photo: Lachlan Cunningham/Getty Images