The USA Selects team for the Americas Rugby Championship is slated to arrive in San Francisco this Saturday.

Players will arrive in the morning and assemble at the San Francisco Golden Gate grounds on Treasure Island for their first session on Saturday afternoon.

That session will start with a very serious fitness test overseen by Head Coach Mike Tolkin and run by Strength & Conditioning Coach David Williams. Players will need to show they are ready to train right then.

“We don’t have a specific number players need to achieve, but we do need them to show us they’ve been doing the work,” Tolkin told RUGBYMag.com. “If a guy came in and it was apparent he hadn’t done the work, we wouldn’t start with him. Somebody like that is not worth the investment.”

Straightforward words from the coach.

After a break, the players will then run their only training session of the day, before hitting the grounds for multiple sessions on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.

On Wednesday the team will fly en masse to Victoria, BC to prepare for the ARC games, which will be October 12 (v. Argentina Jaguars), October 16 (v Canada Selects), and October 20 (V Uruguay), all at Westhills Stadium in Langford, just outside Victoria.

Tolkin said he has three goals for this tournament: introduce new players to how the Eagles train and prepare, identify players who are ready to take the next step, and win.

Winning, while preferable, is not the top priority.

“I think the first think we need to do is show players how we train,” said Tolkin. “These are the things we do, this is how we play the game, and how we carry ourselves. We won’t necessarily train specifically for a particular opponent. But if we train well, and identify the right players, we can win the tournament, and that is something we want, as well.”