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

Venezuela
A 12 point win over Peru on the weekend has set up a winner-takes-all South American B Championship match this coming Saturday. Peru lost at home to both Colombia and Venezuela to officially finish the competition in third, and bottom, position. Venezuela now travel to Colombia to play in Medellín as the underdogs.

Guatemala Women
An impressive campaign in Costa Rica from Guatemala’s women’s team saw glory in the Juegos Centroamericanos. Guatemala recovered from an opening day defeat against Costa Rica on Saturday to come out as champions. Also competing in the Juegos Centroamericanas were El Salvador, Nicaragua and Panama. The competition was a showcase of the development of rugby in the region. Sudamérica Rugby congratulated Costa Rica in hosting a highly successful event.

Argentina XV
The Argentina XV are once again champions of the Americas Pacific Challenge. The official Argentine ‘A’ side humiliated Uruguay ‘A’ by a score of 82-7 on Sunday. It completed an outstanding campaign with a 3-0 record. So good were the Argentina XV against Uruguay ‘A’ that they led 54-0 stood at halftime. The only area which failed was the scrum, an area of grave concern for Los Pumas. Many impressed for the Argentina XV including Sebastián Cancelliere, Juan Cruz Mallía, Rodrigo Bruni and newcomer Nicolás Cantarutti. Spots in Daniel Hourcade’s roster for next month’s tour to England, Italy and Ireland may well have been earned.

USA Select XV
The USA Select XV recorded 2 wins and 1 loss in the Americas Pacific Challenge. Sunday’s win over Canada ‘A’ underlined why the USA is clearly the second best men’s team in the Americas today. Already having qualified for Rugby World Cup 2019, the Eagles are well positioned and have a healthy list of talent coming through the ranks. With the arrival of Major League Rugby the encouraging picture is only going to improve even further.

Felipe Berchesi
Uruguayan fly half Felipe Berchesi had a spectacular match for Dax on Friday. In his best game since joining the club this season the Montevideo no 10 kicked 20 points in what was a 30-25 victory. His points included six penalties and one conversion. From 8 attempts at goal, Berchesi was on target with 7. His form is tremendous news for Uruguay who are to play a two-match tour of Namibia next month. Berchesi is likely to be the starting fly half and goal-kicker in Africa.

Facundo Isa
Facundo Isa put in an impressive European Champions Cup debut on Sunday. The Argentine No 8 was named man of the match for Toulon who downed the Scarlets 21-20. Isa made 90 meters from 15 carries and beat 4 defenders. The 24-year-old Isa last played for Argentina in November 2016. He earned his 25th cap against England, scoring a try. Earlier in the year he also scored against both Australia and New Zealand. Despite being a proven world class performer, Isa will not play for Argentina next month. It is a tragedy of the Jaguares system.

Joe Taufete’e
Big Joe was tremendous this past weekend. Playing hooker for the Worcester Warriors the Californian scored a hat-trick. His three tries were instrumental in Worcester picking up their first win of the 2017-2018 season. The match was a European Challenge Cup fixture against Top 14 side Brive. With the USA Eagles having a tough European tour next month Taufete’e is expected to be heavily involved. His form is extremely promising for the Eagles.

UNDER

Canada ‘A’
Canada are once again left in the basement. They have now failed to find a victory at the Americas Pacific Challenge for two successive years and have precious little time to regroup before facing the Māori in Vancouver and then embarking for Europe. It remains to be seen how many from this group will be summoned for senior duty but it’s safe to say Canadian confidence is low. Only Uruguay conceded more points, thanks to their disastrous game against Argentina, and Canada were easily the least potent side offensively. With very few players coming through with reputations enhanced, it’s hard to see the tournament as anything but another letdown.

Uruguay ‘A’
Los Teros were unable to get it together against the Argentina XV. Sunday’s defeat was the second of the Americas Pacific Challenge, leaving the home side with a 1-2 record. Uruguay ‘A’ were not ready for the task of facing the Argentina XV. Tired bodies enabled a fury of tries as the Argentina XV played spectacular rugby through the backs. With the Americas 2 spot up for grabs in just a few short months Uruguay cannot afford any more half-hearted performances like the one seen on Sunday.

World Rugby Referee Appointments
Nothing, zip, nada. That is what Argentina’s referees again have gotten from World Rugby. The 2017 November Internationals are the second to last prior to Rugby World Cup 2019. Not since 2003 has Argentina had an official referee a World Cup match. This is now set to extend to at least 2023, a staggering two decades. It is not Argentina’s fault. Rather, this lies squarely at the feet of World Rugby. Argentina has competent officials but World Rugby determines that it is better to distribute fixtures to officials from the familiar countries. This means that next month there are to be inexperienced officials from England, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and Wales getting to referee test matches. They join veterans from the same countries. Not one official from the Americas will referee a capped international.

Economic Equation in rugby
Further negative reasoning against World Rugby came in this week, doing so from none other than Vice-Chairman, Agustín Pichot. The former Pumas captain wants England to Split gate revenue with Samoa. Twickenham Stadium is to play host to November Internationals next month. The game against Samoa is causing old debates to resurface as the cash-strapped union will get nothing from a Full House at English rugby HQ. Fed-up with the status quo Samoa is set to request a fee of £160,000 from the RFU. It estimates that England will make a £10 million profit from the fixture.

Pumas Player Grades
Argentina were inept in the Rugby Championship. This is no secret. Daniel Hourcade’s team lost all six matches, doing so by a bonus point margin on all occasions and conceding more tries than in all prior editions of the competition. The team effort was lacking but what analysis shows is that the individual players were more often than not substandard. Many players failed to perform at the 4-Star level. Overall the backs came in dreadfully, averaging just 2.5-Stars. Overall the effort averaged 3-Stars. Winning against Tier 1 opposition requires 4-Star average, something many players never achieved for Argentina in this year’s Rugby Championship.

Roberto Tejerizo
The days in which Roberto Tejerizo’s name appearances on team sheets for the Argentina XV have likely now ended. The Tucumán Loose Head prop had a poor match against Uruguay ‘A’ on Sunday. Considering he is a former captain of the team and has played Super Rugby, Tejerizo is a player who looks very much out of place. In his first touch against Uruguay he had the possession striped from his hands. When he was then on the defense 1 minute later he gave away a needless penalty and was yellow carded. This saw an early shower as less than 10 minutes remained. His appearance from the bench was dismal. The chances of Mario Ledesma utilizing Tejerizo are not good.

Juan Imhoff
A start at fullback for Racing 92 on Saturday but just 4 minutes of game time. Juan Imhoff was forced off early though injury. With Brice Dulin already watching on from the sidelines Racing 92 were left in a tough spot. New arrival, Pat Lambie, though, stood tall helping the Parisians to a 22-18 win over the Leicester Tigers to open their European Champions Cup campaign.