Up and Under

Up and Under is a weekly feature on Americas Rugby News which reviews the best and worst from games involving the Americas teams over the previous week.

UP

USA
A 25-0 win over Russia on Saturday sees the USA rebounding from a home loss against Italy. It gives the Eagles one win from two home internationals this month but, most importantly, shows that with increased professionalism the Eagles are indeed improving. Japan 2019 may be too early for the USA to dream of a Quarter Finals spot but the goal of winning two pool matches will increasingly be talked about.

Todd Clever
Having overcome the Clevergate debacle Todd Clever came back to earn the necessary caps to break the USA Eagles record of Mike MacDonald. Now the 33 year old Clever is the most capped U.S. player of all time. His loss was badly felt by the Eagles team and supporters during Rugby World Cup 2015. Thankfully commonsense has since prevailed and he is now back where he belongs, playing for the Eagles.

Manuel Carizza and Juan Imhoff
Pumas Carizza and Imhoff are now French Champions! Both players are, like Lionel Messi, from Argentina’s third largest city, Rosario. They have been playing in France for a number of years with Carizza having returned this season after previously playing Super Rugby in South Africa and, before that, Top 14 rugby for both Racing 92 and Biarritz. Carizza’s return to France has seen him striking gold. Imhoff joined after Rugby World Cup 2011 and, miraculously, won the final playing out of position. The victory in front of a record crowd of 99,124 could very well stand for decades to come.

Argentina u20’s
Los Pumitas are officially the third best under 20’s team in the world. Argentina’s u20 side made history on Saturday by defeating South Africa to win the Bronze Final of the World Rugby Junior World Championship. Played in Manchester, England Argentina smashed the Baby Boks 49-19 to make it a near perfect campaign. The Semi Final loss to Ireland was the only weak point. In pool matches Los Pumitas came out winners against France, Japan and South Africa to win the pool. A number of players are likely to play on Argentina’s November tour of England, Scotland and Wales this year.

Ciaran Hearn, Lucas González Amorosino
Canadian and Argentine utility backs Ciaran Hearn and Lucas González Amorosino both celebrated reaching the milestone of 50 test caps this past weekend. Playing against Italy and France respectively the backs reached the celebratory mark. With both countries losing their matches they were unable to celebrate in the right manner. Hearn debuted in 2008, one year after González Amorosino.

Ohio Aviators
It was a record-setting day for the Aviators, who annihilated San Francisco at Memorial Park, but as it turned out later in the day it wasn’t just about winning the battle. While Denver defeated Sacramento, their failure to score four tries and earn the bonus point means that Ohio are now winning the war, moving to the top of the league standings for the first time. With only five weeks left in the season, all of a sudden it’s a two-horse race.

UNDER

Argentina
No prizes for guessing the first name in this week’s list. What an appalling showing that was from Los Pumas on Saturday. Absolutely shocking and there is absolutely no place for excuses. The players were all professionals with four months of Super Rugby behind them and most returnees from Rugby World Cup 2015. France came to play and got the better of Argentina in the scrum, lineout and loose. Argentina’s backs were also ineffective and their missed tackles enabled Les Bleus to win big. For the first time since 1949 Argentina was kept scoreless by France. Consequently the South Americans have crashed from 5th to 9th in the world rankings.

Canada
Very close again from Canada but close does not cut the mustard in international sport. The winners are long remembered and the losers forgotten. On Sunday in Toronto a good crowd of 13,000 turned out in hope of an upset. Like the World Cup match it was close but, again, the Central Europeans won back the lead to come out on top. Central to the loss was the lack of tries. All 18 of Canada’s points were penalties from scrumhalf Gordon McRorie.

Tomás Lavanini
Having missed out on representing his country against Italy and France over the prior two weekends, Lavanini returned from suspension to start against France on Saturday. He was the only Argentine to get on the scorers sheet but did so for a yellow card. He kneed Loann Goujon while the Frenchman scored a second half try. The same incident saw his suspended after the opening round of Super Rugby. Following Saturday’s defeat many fans have lost patience with Lavanini. Americas Rugby News staff members has received multiple messages from angry supporters asking for him to be dropped.

Americas Women’s Sevens
Spain are Rio bound. That’s right the Spanish women’s and men’s teams both qualified for the 2016 Olympic Games. The men did so ahead of the higher ranked Samoa and Canada while the women claimed the final place on Sunday, also ahead of more household names. The Americas contingent of Argentina, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago and Venezuela were not up to the task.

Estadio Monumental José Fierro, Tucumán
Two test matches in the space of seven days for Tucumán was one too many. The first problem this brought was asking local fans to pay twice. Marketing one match would be much easier and the UAR needs to think better in the future about this. The second issue is the conditions of the field. It was not pretty with heavy rain having torn up the playing surface. Thirdly is the problem of the the stadium itself. It is dated and really needs to be upgraded. Argentina has much better venues which will not host matches this year.

Pumas Non-Selection of European Pros
Also to come out of Saturday’s disaster is that Argentina is shooting itself in the foot. Is the non-selection of European based players really the best thing to do? Can Argentina hope to defeat Australia, New Zealand or South Africa without Aviva Premiership and Top 14 star players? Australia and South Africa are selecting their European professionals but Argentina is not. The fact is Marcos Ayerza, Manuel Carizza, Juan Figallo, Mariano Galarza, Marcelo Bosch and Juan Imhoff are irreplaceable.

San Francisco Rush
Two steps forward, one giant leap back. It never feels nice to kick a man when he’s down, but there’s nowhere to hide when you suffer such a comprehensive defeat. Maybe it was the travel, maybe it was missing Mils. Whatever the reason, San Francisco undid all the good work of their two game mini-streak with a terrible performance against Ohio. There’s no time to lick their wounds as they’re back in action next week, though thankfully it’s Sacramento, the only team in the league with less points.