Jack Hanratty: Hope Rogers wants to be the best in the world every day

Hope Rogers makes history each time that she steps onto the pitch for the USA Women’s Eagles.

Having surpassed Jamie Burke’s previous record of 51 caps in May 2025, the loosehead prop has since taken her tally to 69, with her latest appearance coming in the USA’s 55-12 defeat to England at Sports Illustrated Stadium.

Hot on the heels of a WXV Global Series campaign that yielded a pair of wins against Italy, as well as victories against Wales and Ireland, Rogers has been named 19th on the RugbyPass Top 50.

The defeat ended the USA’s five-match unbeaten run, which had included a sequence of results unprecedented for the programme in two decades.

Just to sprinkle a few more facts on top of Rogers’ importance to the Eagles, she is four points from being her team’s all-time leading points scorer. The 33-year-old is the only Eagle to have ever been named in the World Rugby Women’s 15s Dream Team of the Year. A bona fide icon of the sport in the USA.

And, to top it all, she is still loving Test rugby.

“I love it,” Rogers told RugbyPass at Sports Illustrated Stadium. “We’ve come leaps and bounds in terms of how we are performing, a lot of our training is harder than the games.

“We have a genuine love for each other as teammates. I’m absolutely loving being an Eagle and I am glad that my body is holding on so that I can keep going – another World Cup would be fantastic.”

Her head coach, Jack Hanratty, has been equally impressed, having taken charge of the Eagles for the first time this year.

“She wants to be the best in the world every single day,” Hanratty said. “She really does. Her poach technique is unbelievable. She wants to be a playmaker because she gets to make carry metres. She’s an incredibly skilful athlete. She takes enormous pride in the scrum.

“I think the nice thing about her this year is that she’s been excited to play the way we’re trying to play rugby. She’s articulate. She’s got emotional intelligence. She really cares about the team. She wants to win games. That was clear from my first phone call with her.

“Here’s an athlete who some might describe as being towards the latter stages of her career, but she still wants to get better. She wants what is best for the programme.”

WHO MAKES THE RUGBYPASS TOP 50