Up and Under

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

 

UP

Toronto Arrows
Major League Rugby (MLR) is now officially international. Canada is to join the USA’s professional rugby competition in 2019 to make it a North American league. The team has rebranded from the Ontario Arrows to the Toronto Arrows and has also unveiled a new logo along with a change in color scheme for their new kit. All told it is Canada’s first professional rugby union team and already talk is looking west with the possibility of Vancouver entering MLR down the line.

Washington DC
Also confirmed as a new team for MLR is DC. The USA capital will have a team entering in 2020, doing g so together with Boston and Atlanta. With it MLR will be a 12 team competition It will be revolutionary for the sport in North America with prime markets in Toronto, New York, Boston, and DC all having franchises. Atlanta finds its closest rivals in the south with New Orleans, Houston, and Austin already established. Glendale and Utah are further west with Seattle and San Diego along the west coast. Future targets in the USA, geographically speaking, look to be Northern California – San Francisco or Sacramento – and the Midwest – Chicago looming large.

Uruguayans and Major League Rugby
The MLR camp in  Glendale, Colorado saw Uruguayans impressing. So much so that various offers have been made to all of the nine Uruguayan players who were involved. It is now entirely possible that all of them will sign on to play in the 2019 MLR season. Americas Rugby News has also learned from reliable sources that three Brazilians are to be signed by MLR clubs.

Trébol de Paysandú
History was made on Saturday with Trébol de Paysandú becoming the national club champions of Uruguay for the first time. The title was secured against the odds and in thrilling fashion. At full-time Old Christians Club and Trébol de Paysandú were tied at 22-22, forcing the game into overtime. The additional two 10 minute halves failed to produce a winner which set up a penalty shoot-out.

November Internationals in São Paulo and Santiago
Record crowds await the Maori All Blacks in South America. Their games against Brazil in São Paulo and Chile in Santiago are to see the national attendance records broken. Over 9,000 tickets have been sold for the game in Chile, surpassing the previous record of 8,000. In Brazil the declared record is slightly above 10,000. Sales for the match this coming Saturday are approaching 20,000.

Patricio Fernández
Argentine fly half Patricio Fernández had a solid afternoon on Saturday. Starting for Clermont he kicked 12 points in the club’s away match against Grenoble. Fernández also played well in general play with his passes putting though two players who would score tries. With Mario Ledesma dumping Santiago González Iglesias from Los Pumas there is a strong case to argue that Fernández is well positioned to be called-up for international duty.

Juan Imhoff
On Sunday continued his fine season in scoring two tries in a Man of the Match performance. The Rosario speedster is joined leader for individual tries this season in the Top 14. His double this past weekend was on the road against Montpellier and it was crucial in the Parisians winning on the road. This past weekend also saw Imhoff named by Americas Rugby News in the latest edition of World Cup Watch. He is projected to go to the RWC and to be the starting left winger.

New Blood in Pumas
Ledesma’s roster for the November Internationals includes Rodrigo Bruno, Santiago Carreras, Santiago Grondona, Lucio Sordoni, Mayco Vivas and Joaquín Díaz Bonilla. All six players are uncapped. They have been preferred to established names, namely players to have been regulars under the Daniel Hourcade regime. Of them Carreras, Grondona, Sordoni and Vivas all join from the u20s. They all competed at the Junior World Championship this year. Considered by many as missed by Hourcade, Bruni and Díaz Bonilla have now gotten opportunities to prove their worth.

 

UNDER

USA Eagles
The USA Eagles were outmatched on Saturday. The team’s 59-22 defeat was comprehensive as the New Zealanders had few problems in racking-up points. It was not the start to the November Internationals that Gary Gold would have been looking for. With the team now traveling to Europe there are questions to be answered in order to get the team back on track. Saturday’s performance was a shadow of that in Houston vs Scotland in June.

Chicago Triple Header
The USA Eagles were not able to field their strongest lineup. This was a reflection of the fixture falling outside of the release period for international duty. The attendance of 35,051 for the Chicago Triple-Header was not a failure though it was far below what would have been aimed for. Following the problems from South Africa vs Wales in Washington DC earlier this year rethinking would be wise.

USA Women’s Eagles
In their match on Saturday the USA Women’s Eagles were inept. The New Zealand Black Ferns hammered the Women’s Eagles in a dominant 67-6 defeat. It was professionals against amateurs and established players against a team with 13 debutants. In many ways it was a reminder of what happened when some, but not all, go professional. Canada’s Men’s team was a competitive team in the 1990s. But the wave of professionalism saw the team’s competitiveness in RWC 1991 not being replicated in subsequent tournaments.

Veteran Pumas
Mario Ledesma is not mucking around. His lack of faith in veteran players has seen big decisions made with Santiago González Iglesias, Ramiro Herrera, Juan Manuel Leguizamón, Manuel Montero, and Leonardo Senatore all dumped for the November Internationals. Only Herrera is missing on the grounds of injury though his concerns are minor. The players are now in a tough predicament with an eye to RWC 2019. The decision to look to uncapped players combined with European-Based options means Japan 2019 looks out of reach for the dumped veterans.

Tomás Pássaro
Foul Play is not tolerated in Argentina. Players have been banned for far longer for comparable instances from Europe’s professional leagues. This past week saw CUBA winger Tomás Pássaro banned for 3 and a half years for stomping. The incident occurred in an URBA Top 12 match against Belgrano. Having been held by an opposition player, Pássaro retaliated, striking the player on the floor in the face. Opinions were divided as to the severity of the punishment. One thing is for sure the talented Argentina XV and Los Pumas 7’s player will not play again for a very long time.

Nate Augspurger and Luke Hume
A strong of late problems saw the USA Men’s Eagles forced to replace captain Nate Augspurger and fullback Luke Hume. Their loss to injury resulted in Will Magie starting at fullback and Tim Maupin on the wing. Mika Kruse was added as a replacement while the captains armband was handed over to Tony Lamborn. All of this happened on match day.

Pari Pari Parkinson
While we won’t go so far as to say the towering Maori second row was malicious, he was at best reckless and rode the line for the entirety of the match. Eagles fans and management will find it very difficult not to feel aggrieved that Parkinson got away lightly, the officials missing a couple times where he wrapped up ball carriers around the head. Most egregious was the body slam on Shaun Davies, an action that received yellow but almost certainly deserving of a red. Davies was forced to leave the game and Parkinson was merely given a 10 minute rest in the sidelines.