Up and Under

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

 

UP

Argentina
Los Pumas did it! Argentina completed an historic win over New Zealand on Saturday. The 25-15 result was their first ever over the All Blacks. Nicolás Sánchez scored all of Argentina’s points but this was a dedicated team effort. Captain Pablo Matera dedicated the victory to all the players who previously played for Los Pumas and to his country. Mario Ledesma’s side held the lead for 67 minutes of the game. The South Americans were quite simply the better team in Sydney.

Colombia
Colombia has formalized professional rugby. The South American country’s first professional rugby team will be Los Cafeteros PRO. The team will enter the Súper Liga Americana de Rugby in 2021. Los Cafeteros PRO will be the sixth team in SLAR. They join existing teams from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay. All five countries fielded one side each in the inaugural SLAR season. Due to COVID-19 the season ended prematurely in March.

Francisco Gómez Kodela, Juan Imhoff
Many prior editions of ‘Up and Under’ have included the names of Gómez Kodela and Imhoff. The players are both now in their 30’s, yet continue to display elite level rugby in France. Gómez Kodela was the leading Argentine tighthead prop during the RWC 2015-2019 cycle. The same is true of Imhoff in his position on the left wing, yet neither player received a test cap during this period with the UAR opting to largely ignore overseas professionals. Gómez Kodela returned for his first cap since 2013, for Imhoff his first since 2015.

Pumas beat the All Blacks with Francisco Gomez Kodela and Juan Imhoff starting – two class players who have been exiled from test rugby for years because of politics. Most happy for them.

— Bryan Ray (@raysrugby) November 15, 2020

Chocobares and Grondona; Delguy and Kremer
Chocobares and Grondona won their first test caps on Saturday. In doing so the pair completed the unthinkable: defeating the All Blacks on debut. They did so at the age of 21 and 22 respectively. Another remarkable outcome of Argentina’s win concerns Bautista Delguy and Marcos Kremer. They won against the All Blacks at the age of 23. Both players defeated Australia and South Africa in 2018 as 21-year-olds.

Cindy Nelles
Nelles played in the first of two matches against the defending World Cup champions over the weekend. The Canadian international was given the rare honor of being selected to the New Zealand Barbarians squad to face the Black Ferns as part of their preparations for RWC 2021. It’s been a memorable few weeks for Nelles. She scored a try against Auckland in the Farah Palmer Cup Semi Final and then notched the game-winner on full-time in the Final to give Canterbury their fourth consecutive Cup title, and second straight for the Belleville, Ontario, native.

Sophie de Goede and Abby Duguid
Two Canadian internationals enjoyed memorable weekends. de Goede was handed her first start for Saracens in a wild game against Wasps. Duguid made her professional debut as a replacement for Loughborough against Worcester. In all there were a dozen North American exports named on Premier 15s team sheets this weekend.

LA begins player announcements
Having confirmed their coaching staff, we now have some player announcements at last. Draft pick Watson Filikitonga will go down as the first signing for Los Angeles, while former Waratahs captain and Australia international Dave Dennis is heading to California. Ex-Raptors prop Blake Rogers was confirmed on Sunday, with six-time Scotland cap Adam Ashe set to be unveiled as early as today. Meanwhile MLR’s other expansion side Dallas finally announced another Colorado export in Marco Fepulea’i.

 

UNDER

Ceibos RC
Ceibos Rugby Club fell to a 41-26 defeat against Trébol. Other results in the Uruguayo de Clubes mean that Ceibos miss out on the play-off’s. PSG’s 24-13 win over MVCC seals Ceibos’ fate. The club finished with 15 points, the same as PSG. Earlier in the season Ceibos were deducted five points. The Quarter Finals will be Old Christians vs PSG, Trébol vs Lobos, Carrasco Polo vs MVCC, and Old Boys vs Los Cuervos.

Women’s RWC Qualifiers
World Rugby and Rugby Europe decided to postpone the Rugby World Cup 2021 qualifiers for the 2021 Women’s RWC tournament. They were scheduled to take place on December 5, 12, and 19. The cancelation occurred despite the continuation of the men’s autumn competition. World Rugby did at least say they were looking to reschedule for early 2021.

RWC 2023 Draw
Wales were outclassed by Ireland on Friday. The 32-9 defeat sees Wales falling to 9th in the world rankings. Wales were briefly ranked no1 in 2019. In terms of RWC 2023 Wales being 9th in the world is an abomination. The RWC 2023 draw will use the rankings from January 1, 2020. In other words, the rankings from the prior RWC tournament. Wales are thus considered a top four team. The draw for RWC 2023 will not be accurate. Could it have been delayed? Yes. World Rugby delayed altering player eligibility laws by a year to enable teams to capture players, meanwhile the draw for RWC 2021 will take place on November 20, less than a year before it is set to begin.

Player Eligibility
“I’m playing for my country,” said Pumas captain Pablo Matera to referee Angus Gardner on Saturday. The pride and commitment of Los Pumas was there for all to see. Meanwhile in Europe we see James Lowe making his Ireland debut, a former Māori international who himself called the eligibility laws ‘stupid‘. Were he not injured prior to New Zealand’s game against Samoa in 2015 Lowe would have been an All Black. Scotland likewise have debuted Oli Kebble, the son of a Springbok and himself a world champion with the Junior Boks in 2012. They are just two examples of players who are not migrations, they are highly paid professional recruits passing a three-year checkpoint. We cannot blame the players for accepting the invitation, but at the same time it’s hard to celebrate such selections.

South Africa
The Springboks pulled out of the Rugby Championship last month. SA Rugby cited player welfare and a lack of clarity as to whether the team would legally be able to depart. Rugby returned in South Africa but did not in Argentina. COVID-19 was so disruptive that Argentina’s home-based players traveled to Uruguay in September. From there they departed for Australia. Quarantine rules prevented the full roster from training together for two weeks. Argentina accepted the obstacles and were rewarded for their individual and collective sacrifices.

Fuimos capaces de hacer esto y mucho más. Somos capaces de honrar la camiseta de @lospumas. #PorLaVuelta#VamosLosPumas pic.twitter.com/bxkkY9h2Pu

— Los Pumas (@lospumas) November 13, 2020