Jaguares End Regular Season With Maximum Points Against Sunwolves

Mission accomplished. This was the overwhelming theme of the post match celebrations from Los Jaguares. The coaching staff, and players delivered on their pre-season quest of returning to the play-off’s.

Getting to the Quarter Finals was the initial goal but now it is in the after thoughts. The goal is now the title. The performances of Gonzalo Quesada’s Jaguares has teams trembling. They finished the season second in the table with only the Crusaders ahead of them. Put differently the only side with more points is the greatest team in the professional era from anywhere in the world.

In his post match interview Guido Petti underlined that humility that is behind Quesada’s Jaguares. The team had 12 changes yet took the opposition very seriously and are not talking about the title, or final but  working towards the home Quarter Final next Friday.

52-10 was the final scoreline, and as it suggests the performance of the home side was notably above the level of the visitors. Yet in the opening 30 minutes of play the Japanese franchise played very well, and were in touch with the Argentine side.

The scoring opened in the 11th minute. Rookie Santiago Carreras was the first to score. Converting was fellow rookie Domingo Miotti to underline the success of the Argentine Super Rugby project.

Los Jaguares would continue to hunt for a way across the try line but regular knock-on’s would see them frustrated for a sustained period. This literally played into the hands of the Sunwolves with former South Africa u20s player Gerhard van den Heever capitalizing on a loose pass to score.

The 7-5 scoreline would not last long. With the Sunwolves now looking to attack an inaccurate pass found its way to Sebastián Cancelliere who intercepted to score.

With half time approaching the Sunwolves would score their second. Doing so was fullback Semisi Masirewa who rounded off an outstanding team move. With it the game was poised at 14-10 to Los Jaguares.

Masirewa would also be responsible for the next try, but this time it was him being yellow carded for tapping down a pass which would have seen captain Matías Orlando scoring. With it Los Jaguares went into half-time leading 21-10.

The second half could not have started better for Quesada’s side. Hooker Julián Montoya scored from a spectacular rolling-maul to underline his development post RWC 2015.

The Sunwolves then suffered an unfortunate loss. An injury to their Georgian player, Jaba Bregvadze saw them without a specialist replacement and thereby saw the team down to 14-men.

Some spaces naturally opened up and on one instance Guido Petti underlined his pace. The second-rower burst through the defense and off-loaded to Juan Cruz Mallía who would score untouched.

As impressive as 33-10 was Los Jaguares were far from done. A smart move from the backs would see replacement Matías Moroni over while Javier Ortega Desio, and Saebastián Cancelliere would add further tries to see the Argentine side past 50 points.

Los Jaguares now await Saturday’s results from South Africa to confirm who they are to be up against in the Quarter Finals. It may the Highlanders, then again it could be the Lions. Regardless of who it is the match will be at Vélez Sarsfield in Buenos Aires.

 

SCORING

JAGUARES (52)
Try: Carreras, Cancelliere (2), Penalty Try, Montoya, Mallía, Moroni, Ortega Desio
Conversion: Miotti (5)

SUNWOLVES (10)
Try: van der Heever, Masirewa
Yellow Card: Masirewa

TEAMS

JAGUARES:
1 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, 2 Julián Montoya, 3 Enrique Pieretto, 4 Guido Petti, 5 Lucas Paulos, 6 Tomás Lezana, 7 Francisco Gorrisen, 8 Rodrigo Bruni, 9 Felipe Ezcurra, 10 Domingo Miotti, 11 Santiago Carreras, 12 Santiago Gónzalez Iglesias, 13 Matías Orlando, 14 Sebastián Cancelliere, 15 Joaquín Tuculet

Replacements: 16 Santiago Socino, 17 Juan Pablo Zeiss, 18 Santiago Medrano, 19 Marcos Kremer, 20 Javier Ortega Desio, 21 Tomás Cubelli, 22 Juan Cruz Mallía, 23 Matías Moroni

SUNWOLVES
1 Masataka Mikami, 2 Nathan Vella, 3 Conan O’Donnell, 4 Mark Abbott, 5 Tom Rowe, 6 Ryota Hasegawa, 7 Shuhei Matsuhashi, 8 Ben Gunter, 9 Jamie Booth, 10 Hayden Parker, 11 Hosea Saumaki, 12 Timothy Lafaele, 13 Josh Timu, 14 Gerhard van den Heever, 15 Semisi Masirewa

Replacements: 16 Jaba Bregvadze, 17 Shogo Miura, 18 Takuma Asahara, 19 Yuya Odo, 20 Masakatsu Nishikawa, 21 Keisuke Uchida, 22 Takuya Yamasawa, 23 Jason Emery