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Bristol Bears fly-half AJ MacGinty admits he is playing in his third World Cup in the Australia in 12 months is an ambition aimed at firmly erasing the memory of the United States’ failure to qualify four years ago.
MacGinty, 36, who played in the 2015 and 2019 tournaments, missed France after the Eagles’ hopes were sunk by Samuel Marques’ last-minute penalty, which secured a 16-16 tie for Portugal and their qualifications.
A 43-game veteran, against whom he made his debut for the Eagles Samoa in July 2015, rested this summer from the USA Nations Cup squad after returning from an Achilles injury suffered in the season opener against the Bears. Leicester Tigers.
MacGinty, who is out of contract at the end of the season, has not ruled out extending his career beyond the World Cup and has been in magnificent form during the Bears’ unbeaten start to the new Gallagher PREM campaign.
“Going back to the first World Cup when I made the U.S. national team, and then looking at World Cups over the next decade, I would look at Australia in 2027 and think, yeah, that’s what I want to do.
“And that was even before I had a professional contract or signed at Connacht, or then went to Sale. So before I kind of agreed that I wanted to be a professional rugby player because I was still an amateur, I wanted to go to four World Cups.”
“Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to the one in France. So my ambition is to go to the next World Cup. I guess you go game by game and you want to win the World Cup and I have yet to do that,” he said.
The 2031 World Cup tournament will be held on home soil and MacGinty believes Eagles head coach Scott Lawrence is benefiting from the players spending more time together, as well as the likes of Jack Iscaro playing in France and Italy.
“They have a long-term vision for 2031. The team has been together for a while: the summer, the PNC (Pacific Nations Cup), and now they have spent a lot of time in Japan playing against Japanese teams and Australia A.
“As far as the money involved and the time spent together, that’s something he’s really worked on because usually you only have a summer tour and a tour in November. So more time together than the last two years.”
“MLR, I can’t comment on the state of MLR at the moment, but obviously a few teams have pulled out, which is unfortunate,” he added.
“But then there’s a lot more guys that are in professional environments. So it’s still in the growth stage and hopefully we can keep that up to 2027 and beyond.”
