Olímpia Lions Upset Peñarol in Asunción

The Olímpia Lions upset Peñarol on Sunday in Asunción. The Paraguayan SLAR franchise completed a late 15-13 victory over the Uruguayan side. The match marked the firsts ever home professional rugby match for the Olímpia Lions.

Peñarol started strongly to quickly establish a lead. The Uruguayans scored the only try of the match in the first half and also landed a first half penalty. The try was from an attacking line-out. Former Houston SaberCat, Diego Magno took the lineout high and set-up a maul. Hooker Guillermo Pujadas touched down for the try.

Peñarol’s remaining points were from an Argentine boot. Nicolás Roger converted Pujadas’ try and landed one penalty in each half of the contest. The 10-6 half-time lead was a reasonable start; but, it proved to be insufficient as Peñarol had few opportunities in the second half.

The Olímpia Lions not only won the match with a late penalty, the team score all points via kicks at goal. SLAR rookie Diego Walter kicked three from fullback while Paraguayan fly half Sebastián Urbieta took over late to land two kicks at goal.

The Olímpia Lions’ first lead in the match was with less than two minutes remaining. The Paraguayan franchise won a penalty from the resulting kick-off; Peñarol captain Andrés Vilaseca was yellow carded for making contact with a player in the air. The Olímpia Lions subsequently kicked deep for the corner and held on for a famous win.

The win today combined with the weekend’s other results mean that there is no SLAR team still unbeaten after three rounds of the season. Los Jaguares XV were upset by Selknam on Friday while Los Cafeteros Pro claimed their first franchise win by beating Os Cobras on Saturday.

SLAR 2022 is now alive. There is plenty of upcoming matches to look forward to. Next weekend will see a new venue with Ciudad del Este playing host to three matches. The Olímpia Lions will take on Os Cobras, Peñarol face Los Jaguares XV and Los Cafeteros Pro will take-on Selknam.

 

SCORING

OLÍMPIA LIONS 15
Pen – D Walter 3/3 (37′, 40′, 48′), S Urbieta 2/2 (67′, 77′)

PEÑAROL 13
Try – G Pujadas 16′
Con – N Roger 1/1 (17′)
Pen – N Roger 2/2 (4′, 46′
YC – T Etcheverry 63′, A Vilaseca 79′

TEAMS

OLÍMPIA LIONS
1 Daniel Cabral, 2 Mariano Muntaner, 3 Luis Enrique Quinteros, 4 Lorenzo Colidio, 5 Mariano Garcete, 6 Federico Simondi, 7 Ignacio Gandini (capt.), 8 Mariano Romanini, 9 Ignacio Inchauspe, 10 Sebastián Urbieta, 11 Matías Sauze, 12 Estanislao Arrias, 13 Francisco Díez, 14 Julián Quetglas, 15 Diego Walter

Replacements: 16 Emilio Gorostiaga, 17 Ezequiel Reyes, 18 Estefano Aranda, 19 Agustín Toth, 20 Ariel Nuñez, 21 Facundo Villalba, 22 Nicolás Hogg, 23 Juan González

PEÑAROL
1 Juan Echeverría, 2 Guillermo Pujadas, 3 Ignacio Peculo, 4 Eric Dosantos, 5 Diego Magno, 6 Manuel Ardao, 7 Santiago Civetta, 8 Carlos Deus, 9 Tomás Inciarte, 10 Nicolás Roger, 11 Rodrigo Silva, 12 Andrés Vilaseca (capt.), 13 Felipe Arcos Pérez, 14 Bautista Basso, 15 Felipe Etcheverry

Replacements: 16 Emiliano Faccennini, 17 Mathias Franco, 18 Mateo Perillo, 19 Nahuel Milan, 20 Tomás Etcheverry, 21 Francisco Suárez, 22 Santiago Álvarez, 23 Baltazar Amaya

MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Damian Schneider (Argentina)
Assistant Referees: Nehuen Jauri Rivero (Argentina); Cauã Ricardo (Brazil)
TMO: Tomás Bertazza (Argentina)