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Colombia host Venezuela today. The winner of the match will be crowned the 2017 South American B Championship winners. With the competition being rebranded in 2018 it is a final opportunity to secure the title.
The fixture is to be the 15th time that Colombia and Venezuela have met in test matches. The official records stands at 8 wins for Cololmbia and 7 for Venezuela.
The first test match they played was on October 06 2011. Taking place in Caracas, Venezuela won 55-0. Venezuela’s most recent win was in 2011. On that occasion the 57-19 triumph was in Lima, Peru. Colombia has since dominated.
Colombia enters the match with a host of changes. In the front-row Mauricio Espinal comes in to play Loose head prop. This sees Diego Posada moving to hooker and Jorge Alvarez dropping out.
Second-rower Danny Giraldo makes way for Santiago Mejía. This sees Mejía locking the scrum together with Jhon Alvarez. The back-row that dominated Peru has been retained.
In the back Julian Navarro and Emmanuel Bedoya again start as the half-back pairing. Also retained from the win over Peru are Brayan Campino, Jose Diosa, Neider Garcia, and Andres Alvarez.
The one change in the backline sees Johan Ortiz replaced by Sebastián Zurique at outside center. Diosa and Zurique are club mates at Duendes in Medellín.
At the time of publication Veneuzela is yet to confirm its line-up.
Both Colombia and Venezuela won their respective matches against Peru. Both experienced comfortable wins, setting up a winner-takes-all final.
Colombia’s dominance in recent years is expected to continue. A win from Los Tucanes will improve on Colombia’s position in the Americas Rankings. It will also be a great manner to say goodbye to the South American B Championship.
In 2018 Colombia join Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay and the Argentina XV in the new Sudamérica 6 Naciones A competition. Venezuela will be one division lower with Costa Rica, Guatemala and Peru in the Sudamérica 4 Naciones B tournament.
COLOMBIA
1 Mauricio Espinal, 2 Diego Posada, 3 Andres Arango, 4 Jhon Alvarez, 5 Santiago Mejía, 6 Gerson Ortiz, 7 Camilo Cadavid, 8 Sebastian Mejia (Capt.), 9 Julian Navarro, 10 Emmanuel Bedoya, 11 Neider Garcia, 12 Jose Diosa, 13 Sebastián Zurique, 14 Brayan Campino, 15 Andres Alvarez
Head Coach: David Jaramillo
VENEZUELA
from: Eduardo Hernández, Rannel Barrios, Miguel Salcedo, Lisandro Espinoza, Alberto Araujo, Robert Torres, Luis Zabala, Juan López, Xavier Pírela, Pedro Reañez, Carlos Cañizalez, Luis López, José Gutiérrez, Jesús Cañizalez, Daniel Duran, Luis Martínez, Roberto Schaefer, Edwin Marín, Wilkinson Arrieta, Luis Romero, Kelving Cordero, Ali Ayoub, José Rojas
Head Coach: Mario Urdaneta
Date: Saturday October 21
Kick-off: 3pm
Venue: Estadio Bernardo “Nando” Álvarez, Medellín
Referee: Juan Pablo Federico (Argentina)
Assistants: Luís Santa (Colombia) and Yheyson López (Colombia)
