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Santiago Fernández was the hero as Hindú were crowed Argentine champions on Saturday. The former Puma scored all 18 points for the Buenos Aires club who won the Nacional de Clubes Final at home in Don Torcuato against Rosario’s Jockey. The national title was Hindú’s 10th in history.
The pre-match hope around the encounter was that of RWC 2011 halves Santiago Fernández (Hindú) and Nicolás Vergallo (Jockey) facing-off on opposite teams. The former earned 32 caps and the latter 35 with both being Pumas over a lengthy period.
Both Fernández, and Vergallo not only had international honors but notable careers in France for clubs including Montpellier and Toulouse. Their return to Argentina has seen him giving back to the clubs that produced them and the Nacional de Clubes Final was as big as it gets.
The tense final saw only one try scored. In the opening half there was little opportunity for tries with Hindú instead setting-up a 12-3 lead at half time.
After the second-half restart the Elephants were reduced to 14 players with Tomás Resnick red carded for punching. In the first half Jockey had lost two players in the final minutes – Manuel De Marco, and Agustin Orsi to yellow cards.
Hindú’s win saw a return to the prominence of the scrum in Argentine rugby. Two of Fernández’ first half penalties came in this area. His two second-half penalties had Hindú leading 18-6 after 61 minutes.
Finding a way to victory proved to be highly complex for Jockey. They would not give up, however, and were rewarded with a try to Patricio Baronio from a quick tap saw them closing to lose by five points.
SCORING
HINDÚ (18)
Penalty: Fernández 6 (7′, 12′, 26′, 28′, 50′ 61′)
Red Card: Resnick (43′)
JOCKEY (13)
Try: Baronio (79′)
Conversion: Dogliani (80′)
Penalty: Albertengo (20′), Dogliani (54′)
Yellow Card: de Marco (35′), Orsi (39′)
TEAMS
HINDÚ
1 Juan Martinez Sosa, 2 Agustín Capurro, 3 Mariano Viano, 4 Gonzalo Delguy, 5 Augusto Bávaro, 6 Tomas Resnick, 7 Lautaro Bávaro, 8 Nicolás Amaya, 9 Lucas Camacho, 10 Santiago Fernández, 11 Francisco Mateu, 12 Severiano Escobio, 13 Belisario Agulla, 14 Agustín Fusoni, 15 Martin Cancelliere
JOCKEY
1 Agustín Orsi, 2 Mariano Pigatto, 3 Alfredo Gálvez, 4 Facundo Saranich, 5 Marcos Lorenzini, 6 Máximo Oliveros, 7 Emiliano Ferrari, 8 Sebastián Binner (cpt.), 9 Nicolás Vergallo, 10 Juan Albertengo, 11 Guido Pedregoza, 12 Facundo Ferrario, 13 Matías Ferrario, 14 Manuel de Marco, 15 Patricio Baronio
