This week, two sports that hardly get any attention will send the nation’s top stars across the globe to face the world’s best.

Last Sunday, the USA rugby team, known as the Eagles, began its run in the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand with a hard fought 22-10 loss against one of the world’s best teams, Ireland during group play. Rugby is one of the most popular sports in the world, but is still trying to get attention in the United States. However, it is getting better. In the past few years, high school and college rugby has really taken off, especially here locally.

This weekend a big rugby tournament will take place at the MTSU Sports Complex which includes several college and high school teams. MTSU take part in the college division, while Siegel and Riverdale will be the high school division. Once you see the sport in person, you will get a new respect on what these players go through in terms of hitting as hard as what you see in football. However, these guys do not wear as much padding and the sport is faster paced than its cousin, football.

On the national level, the USA games including last Sunday’s was shown on the NBC family of networks. Also, the network is preparing for the sport’s return to the Olympics in 2016 by televising the college championships.

Team USA will be looking for its first win in the World Cup since 2003 when they face Russia on Thursday. The Americans are placed in Pool C and they also will face Italy and Australia to complete pool play. The finals will take place on October 23.

The best motocross riders in the world will take on each other in a team format during this weekend’s 2011 Motocross of Nations in France.

The USA team will be looking for its seventh win in a row in the event.

This year’s USA team is loaded with three of the top riders in the world. However, the two Ryan’s Dungey and Villopoto are friendly but heated rivals as they battled each other for the AMA Motocross and Supercross titles this season.

Last week, Villopoto narrowly defeated Dungey for the AMA Motocross title during the season’s last event in California. Villopoto also won the Supercross earlier this season.

Last season, Dungey took home both titles. It was a tough decision for USA team manager Roger De Coster to decide who would be the No. 1 rider and who would be No.3. He went with the guy that ran in the No. 1 position and helped USA win the 2010 MXON on home soil in Colorado, Dungey. Villopoto missed last year’s race because of an injury suffered during a Supercross race. Blake Baggett will be American’s No. 2 rider.

Here’s how the event works, each class (MX1, MX2 and Open) races twice, once against the one of the other two classes. For example, MX1 would race against MX2, and MX1 would race against the Open class. First place in each race earns a point and then so forth. The worst score is dropped and the lowest score combined score of the entire nation’s riders will decide the champion.

Experts say the Americans toughest competition will come from the host nation, France. The French have only one win in the event and that came in 2001. The team is lead by one of the world’s best riders, Christophe Pourcel. His teammates are not too bad either, Gauthier Paulin won the Grand Prix race last week and Marvin Musquin is a favorite in the MX2 class. Other favorites include Australia and Great Britain.

The only problem is this event is only on pay-per-view. I can not believe with all of the crap that networks will put on television, today. No one would pony up and show the race, especially with both the AMA Supercross (CBS) and Motocross (NBC) series getting national television network coverage. Instead, you have to go to websites like Racer X, which is the sport’s bible in terms of in-depth coverage of all of the events.

In conclusion, I will be cheering for both teams and wearing my national pride proudly.