A sell-out crowd turned up to Soldier Field in Chicago on the first day of November to watch the best rugby team in the world take on the hosts. All but one of the crowd turned up to watch top class rugby rather than expecting a USA win over the mighty world champion All Blacks - a monumental shock if that happened anyway.
The game definitely delivered on that count with some scintillating skills through the hands for some sweet tries even if it wasn't quite a defensive masterclass by the hosts.
Trouncing aside, it was a good advertisement for rugby in the USA. The next step now is to make the USA team more competitive - and while high profile games against the All Blacks are great for marketers, it's unlikely the ABs will make frequent visits to the USA unless they want to prepare their players for the tour of the Northern Hemisphere by being 43-6 at halftime against the 20th rated team int the world.
It isn't really good for the morale of the Eagles too.
Indeed, USA soccer isn't where it is now because they kept getting friendlies between Brazil and the USA in the early days - although nowadays, they've gotten Brazil to play their friendlies in places like Miami and Los Angeles, which is something the NZRU could consider in the future against say the Wallabies or South Africa.
The way forward is really having a regular season competition based on the idea of the original NASL, the precedessor to the MLS which attracted the likes of Franz Beckenbauer and Pele in the 1970s. Imagine the likes of Bryan Habana, Dan Carter, etc. all spending the autumn of their careers in the USA.
Former All Black and now commentator, Justin Marshall, once commented that the trouble with rugby was not being able to play in "exotic" places like Barcelona or Hong Kong just because there was no competitive team based there. I reckon players would relish the opportunity to play your professional rugby in New York or San Francisco.
If USA Rugby can market the competition well - which I'm confident they can after the success of this game, then rugby is onto a winner in the USA. A tie up with the Canadians could also be good and make the competition stronger while giving Canadians an opportunity to play professional rugby in their homeland. Canadians have a long history of playing in USA based competitions and it has worked really well, e.g. NHL, NBA and MLB all feature teams from Canada's largest city, Toronto at least with Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg also having franchises in the cash-rich American competitions.
Positioning of the competition is key too - and that's where rugby has a glorious opportunity of being the sole active outdoor winter football code in North America post Super Bowl and college football season. The success and growth of the MLS has been down to not competing with the juggernauts of the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB, but complimenting them - and that concept has been followed by the A-League in Australia which has been deliberately positioned to avoid competing with the NRL and AFL.
Late February to May is not a bad time to be playing rugby in North America with spring approaching in most places, especially in California.
Finally, a tie-up with Super Rugby, the English Premiership or French Top 14 could make the North American rugby competition. This is a concept that has been undertaken by the fledgling Indian Premier Soccer League where the likes of Atletico Madrid and Manchester City have bought a percentage of the franchises there. That way, the likes of Leicester, the Crusaders or Bulls could send some of their players to the USA for game time and development.
The future for rugby is bright in the USA - now's really the time to make hay while the sun shines.
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