ARC Preview – Uruguay vs Brazil

A match with historic implications will appropriately close out the 2019 Americas Rugby Championship. On the back of their superb win over the USA in Seattle, Uruguay will host Brazil at the Estadio Charrúa in Montevideo. Whichever team wins will celebrate their best-ever finish in the competition.

With a one-point lead over the USA heading into the match, the bonus point won’t be required for Los Teros to finish in 2nd place. They will face the most confident Tupis side they have seen, but history is very much against the visitors.

The record books tell the story. Brazil have fallen short in 21 consecutive tests against Uruguay, a run dating back to August 1964. Just four points separated the two during their 2016 ARC meeting in São Paulo. The Tupis do not have their home field advantage this time around and a very partisan crowd awaits in Montevideo.

With both Lucas Abud and Caíque Silva ruled out, Rodolfo Ambrosio has opted to move Jardel Vettorato to loosehead prop with Wilton Rebolo starting at tighthead. It’s exactly the same front row from the 2016 match but on that day Rebolo wore the No1 jersey.

Regular skipper Yan Rosetti gets his first start of the campaign but will leave the captaincy in the hands of Arthur Bergo for this match. The only other change to the starting lineup sees Gabriel Paganini starting at lock as Matteo Dell’Acqua has returned to Italy. Reserve hooker Walter Schildberg awaits his test debut having been an unused replacement against Canada.

Esteban Meneses has made four personnel changes to the Teros lineup. Diego Magno and Alejandro Nieto are on Major League Rugby duty so Diego Ayala makes his first appearance of the tournament at lock and Manuel Diana comes in at No8. Franco Lamanna gets his first start since February of last year with Juan Diego Ormaechea swapped to the bench.

The addition of World Cup flyhalf Felipe Berchesi boosts the backline and allows Juan Manuel Cat to move to his usual outside center position. Joaquín Prada swaps to the bench to make room with the backline otherwise unchanged.

On the bench there are two additions. Juan Echeverría will play for Austin Elite this weekend so Facundo Gattas switches his focus to loosehead prop and Guillermo Pujadas comes in to act as backup hooker. Gonzalo Soto Mera has recovered from the knock that saw him sit out the entire Argentina XV game to act as second row cover.

The scrum battle will be hotly anticipated but with perfect conditions forecast it’s elsewhere that the game will be won. Josh Reeves has been Brazil’s deadliest weapon, the flyhalf now just four points short of Matías Nordenflycht’s ARC tournament record of 53 points. To beat Uruguay, however, the Tupis will need something extra.

Los Teros showed their evolved attacking game against the USA and the addition of Berchesi gives them even more speed in the backline. They also have experienced campaigners on the bench in Ormaechea, Prada, and Mario Sagario. This Brazil side will be competitive but Uruguay’s advantages should be enough to see them through.

Kickoff is set for 7:15pm local, 2:15pm Pacific, 5:15pm Eastern. ESPN will broadcast in South America with both FloRugby and ESPN+ available in the USA. Canadians can watch on TSN.ca while those located elsewhere can access the World Rugby live stream.

URUGUAY
1 Mateo Sanguinetti, 2 Germán Kessler, 3 Juan Rombys, 4 Ignacio Dotti, 5 Diego Ayala, 6 Juan Manuel Gaminara, (capt.), 7 Franco Lamanna, 8 Manuel Diana, 9 Santiago Arata, 10 Felipe Berchesi, 11 Nicolás Freitas, 12 Andrés Vilaseca, 13 Juan Manuel Cat, 14 Federico Favaro, 15 Gastón Mieres

Replacements: 16 Facundo Gattas, 17 Guillermo Pujadas, 18 Mario Sagario, 19 Gonzalo Soto Mera, 20 Juan Diego Ormaechea, 21 Tomás Inciarte, 22 Manuel Blengio, 23 Joaquín Prada

BRAZIL
1 Jardel Vettorato, 2 Yan Rosetti, 3 Wilton Rebolo, 4 Gabriel Paganini, 5 Luiz Vieira, 6 Cléber Dias, 7 Arthur Bergo (capt.), 8 André Arruda, 9 Lucas Duque, 10 Josh Reeves, 11 Robert Tenório, 12 Moisés Duque, 13 Lorenzo Massari, 14 Lucas Tranquez, 15 Daniel Sancery

Replacements: 16 Walter Schildberg, 17 João Talamini, 18 Pedro Bengaló, 19 Michael Moraes, 20 Alexandre Alves, 21 Douglas Rauth, 22 Stefano Giantorno, 23 Ariel Rodrigues

Date: Saturday, March 9
Venue: Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
Kickoff: 19:15 local (14:15 Pacific, 17:15 Eastern)
Referee: Moe Chaudhry (RC)
Broadcasts: ESPN 3 (South America), FloRugby (USA), TSN.ca (Canada), World Rugby