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A pivotal confrontation in round four of the Americas Rugby Championship pits rivals Chile and Uruguay up against each other with World Rugby rankings points and a massive amount of pride on the line. Taking place at the Centro de Alto Rendimiento Rugby (CARR) in La Reina, the match offers Los Cóndores a chance to take back-to-back matches over Los Teros for the first time since 1961. Chile came away surprise 30-15 winners in Santiago in May of last year against a strong Uruguayan side composed largely of World Cup attendees.
Los Cóndores have changed seven of the team that were soundly beaten in Fort Lauderdale. Nicolás Venegas and Rodrigo Moya come into the starting front row, with veteran hooker Manuel Garruchaga called into the squad as a reserve along with Northland prop Roberto Oyarzún. Nikola Bursic replaces Felipe Bassaletti at lock, and Cristóbal Niedmann is recalled at flanker, swapping places with Ignacio Silva. Ignacio Álvarez joins the bench for the first time as a reserve.
The outside backs are again rotated, with Ítalo Zunino and José Ignacio Larenas selected on the wings and Leonardo Montoya at fullback. Head coach Elías Santillán will be hoping the changes are enough to inspire a second win for Chile in the ARC after losing two in a row.
Uruguay meanwhile fell short against the Argentina XV by a desperately narrow 24-21 score, and must be aiming for redemption against Los Cóndores. Only one change has been made to the starting pack that rattled the visitors in Punte del Este, with lineout specialist Matías Beer selected in place of try-scorer Juan Diego Ormaechea. First choice World Cup hooker Carlos Arboleya is recalled to the bench after missing out on Saturday’s game, along with Rafael Mones and Gonzalo Soto.
The backs see three changes, with experienced duo Leandro Leivas and Alberto Román replacing Andres Rocco and Facundo Klappenbach at wing and centre respectively. Rodrigo Silva’s talents have been restored to the starting lineup, this time as a fullback having been chosen at flyhalf for the first two games of the tournament.
The match kicks off at 6pm local time, 4pm EST and will be broadcast live on ESPN3.
CHILE
1 Nicolás Venegas 2 Rodrigo Moya 3 Luis Sepúlveda 4 Nikola Bursic 5 Raimundo Piwonka 6 Cristóbal Niedmann 7 Javier Richard 8 Benjamín Soto (capt.) 9 Beltrán Vergara 10 Cristian Onetto 11 Ítalo Zunino 12 Francisco de la Fuente 13 Matías Nordenflycht 14 José Ignacio Larenas 15 Leonardo Montoya
16 Manuel Gurruchaga 17 Roberto Oyarzún 18 José Tomás Munita 19 Ignacio Silva 20 Ignacio Álvarez 21 Matthieu Manas 22 Pablo Casas 23 Matías Contreras
URUGUAY
1 Mateo Sanguinetti 2 Germán Kessler 3 Juan Echeverría 4 Diego Magno 5 Mathias Palomeque 6 Juan Manuel Gaminara (capt.) 7 Matías Beer 8 Alejandro Nieto 9 Guillermo Litjenstein 10 Martín Secco 11 Leandro Leivas 12 Alberto Román 13 Andrés Vilaseca 14 Federico Favaro 15 Rodrigo Silva
16 Carlos Arboleya 17 Facundo Gattas 18 Rafaél Mones 19 Gonzalo Soto 20 Juan Diego Ormaechea 21 Manuel Blengio 22 Santiago Arata 23 Pedro Deal
Referee: Damián Schneider (UAR)
Assistants: Claudio Ruz (FERUCHI) & Luis Díaz (FERUCHI)
