Argentina XV beat Chile in ARC warm-up

The Argentina XV had little trouble with Chile as they cruised to a 47-14 win at La Boya on Wednesday afternoon in a friendly that served as a warm-up for the Americas Rugby Championship. By the 22nd minute mark they had already scored four unanswered tries, with the two Chilean scores coming in a 5-minute span before halftime.

Jerónimo Ureta went over with ease just a couple minutes in, and it didn’t take long for Teo Castiglioni to score. The Pumitas graduate had only just come on to the field as a blood replacement for Lucas Mensa. A third try was of the penalty variety at a collapsed scrum, and Mensa grabbed one himself just after the water break.

Chile regrouped and were able to mount a sustained challenge on the line with Eduardo Orpis just managing to get over for the first try. The second was a rare moment of excellence from the Condores as they worked an overlap and sent winger Gonzalo Lara clear down the left sideline, with Santiago González Moller landing the conversion.

A fifth try came just before the intermission from Julian Dominguez. Simple hands found the left winger in space and he casually dotted down in the corner to leave a difficult conversion. Martin Roger was up to the challenge to make the score 33-14 at halftime.

The second half was largely a stop-start affair as Argentina swapped out their entire XV and Chile made numerous changes with open substitutions allowed. Tomas Cubilla broke through to score shortly into the half with Castiglioni picking up his second in the dying minutes of the match.

Argentina will continue their preparations with largely the same squad for their opening match of the ARC against Brazil. Having already gained Franco Molina and Santiago Carreras as cast-offs from the Jaguares, they may add one or two more after the Super Rugby side plays Uruguay on Thursday.

Meanwhile Chile are set to call several reinforcements for the main tournament. Pablo Lemoine had experimented with the selection of uncapped Jaden Laing at No8 while fielding centre Gonzalo Lara on the wing and Christian Huerta, a fullback, in the midfield. Captain Javier Richard was a late withdrawal from the side, prompting the inclusion of an extra front rower in Mauricio Gómez among the replacements.

Chile’s opening match of the tournament will be against the US Eagles in Santiago.

 

SCORING

ARGENTINA 47
Tries – J. Ureta (2’), T. Castiglioni 2 (9’, 74’), Penalty try (17’), L. Mensa (22’), J. Dominguez (39’), T. Cubilla (47’)
Cons – M. Roger 3/4 (10’, 23’, 40’), M. Elías 2/2 (48’, 75’)
Yellow cards – F. Gorrissen (45’)

CHILE 14
Tries – E. Orpis (28’), G. Lara (33’)
Cons – S. Videla 1/1 (29’), S. González Moller 1/1 (34’)

 

TEAMS

ARGENTINA XV
(1st HALF) 1 Javier Corvalán, 2 Axel Zapata, 3 Lucas Favre, 4 Jerónimo Ureta, 5 Franco Molina, 6 Lautaro Bavaro (capt.), 7 Benito Ortíz de Rosas, 8 Santiago Portillo, 9 Felipe Ezcurra, 10 Martín Roger, 11 Julián Domínguez, 12 Lucas Mensa, 13 Agustín Segura, 14 Matías Osadczuk, 15 Santiago Carreras

(2nd HALF) 1 Nicolás Solveyra, 2 José Luis González, 3 Martín Fernández Segurotti, 4 Carlos Repetto, 5 Lucas Santa Cruz, 6 Francisco Gorrissen (capt.), 7 Joaquín de la Vega, 8 Nicolás Walker, 9 Gregorio de Prete, 10 Martín Elías, 11 Facundo Cúcolo, 12 Teo Castiglioni, 13 Tomás Cubilla, 14 Pablo Avellaneda, 15 Facundo Cordero

CHILE
1 Francisco Pizarro, 2 Tomás Dussaillant, 3 Nicolás Ovalle, 4 Javier Eissman, 5 Clemente Saavedra, 6 Eduardo Orpis, 7 Martín Sigren, 8 Jaden Laing, 9 Domingo Saavedra, 10 Santiago Videla, 11 Gonzalo Lara, 12 Vicente Ayarza, 13 Christian Huerta, 14 José Ignacio Larenas, 15 Tomás Ianiszewski

Replacements: 16 Augusto Böhme, 17 Javier Carrasco, 18 Matías Dittus, 19 Mauricio Gómez, 20 Bastián Burguener, 21 Alfonso Escobar, 22 Juan Pablo Larenas, 23 Francisco González Moller

 

MATCH OFFICIALS

Referee: Damián Schneider (UAR)