Buenos Aires are new Argentine Champions

Ending a six-year drought Buenos Aires return to be the champions of Argentina’s national Provincial Championship, the Torneo Argentino de Uniones, otherwise known as the Campeonato Argentino. Las Águilas underlined themselves as the team of the season by defeating 2014 champions Tucumán 57-14 on Saturday afternoon.

The eight tries to one performance included a hat-trick from center Bruno Devoto and a double from winger Gonzalo Gutiérrez Taboada but it was Tucumán who started the strongest with fly half Juan León Novillo giving his team a 6-3 lead after 8 minutes.

Having played for Argentina in this year’s CONSUR Cup a lot of pressure was on Novillo against an in-form and undefeated Buenos Aires side. The home team, however, was too strong on the day with former Puma Tomás De la Vega scoring the opening try in the 11th minute. Fullback Pedro Marcerat’s conversion gave Buenos Aires the lead and the team exploded to life playing impressive rugby.

The 38-14 half time score all but had the result confirmed as two different teams took to the field in the second half. Buenos Aires’ three tries ensured a new national champion and a flawless campaign that has underlined a number of players as potentially rising through the ranks to higher honors.

Scorers
Buenos Aires
Tries: De la Vega, Devoto (3), Gutiérrez Taboada (2), González, Díaz Bonilla
Conversions: Mercerat (7)
Penalty: Mercerat

Tucumán
Try: Cortés
Penalty: Novillo (3)

BUENOS AIRES
1 Francisco Ferronato, 2 Facundo Bosch, 3 Leandro Assi, 4 Sebastián Médica, 5 Sacha Casañas, 6 Miguel Urtubey, 7 Lautaro Bávaro, 8 Tomás De La Vega, 9 Lucas Camacho, 10 Juan Cruz González, 11 Gonzalo Gutiérrez Taboada, 12 Bruno Devoto, 13 Juan Cappiello, 14 Matías Massera, 15 Pedro Mercerat.

TUCUMÁN
1 Javier Díaz, 2 Diego Vidal, 3 Francisco Trejo, 4 Juan Martín Guerineau, 5 Rodrigo Ferro, 6 Juan Simón, 7 Nicolás Proto, 8 Lisandro Ahualli, 9 Joaquín López Islas, 10 Juan León Novillo, 11 Augusto López, 12 Matías Frías Silva, 13 Matías Orlando, 14 Agustín Cortés, 15 Lucas Barrera Oro