USA 7s team captain Shalom Suniula isn’t backing down from a challenging draw at the Dubai 7s this weekend.

The Eagles face off with New Zealand, South Africa and Portugal in a very tough pool, and will need to pull off a first-time upset of either of those first two teams to get to the Cup Quarterfinals.

But Suniula told RUGBYMag.com that the team feels they know what they can do, and came out of their 17-12 loss to South Africa at the Gold Coast 7s feeling as if they should have won.

Only some small mistakes – a turnover here, a missed tackle there, and a shocking five restart errors – hurt them, rather than an overall inability to compete.

“There restarts were an uncharacteristic mistake of mine that won't happen again,” said Suniula, who made four of those five errors. Head Coach Al Caravelli said the team would fix their restart problems immediately, and Suniula is ready to show that has been accomplished. Outside of that, the USA did some good things in Australia.

“There were lots of positives to take out of last weekend,” said Suniula. “We are going into this weekend with a boatload of confidence knowing what we are capable of doing.”