Pampas and Dogos Power On; Selknam Blow Strong Start Against Yacare

Two teams are unbeaten after two rounds of Super Rugby Americas 2024. Los Pampas and Los Dogos are officially the form teams. The Argentine sides won their respective matches by healthy margins. The other fixture saw Yacare recovering from a half-time deficit to hold Selknam scoreless in the second-half and come away with a home victory.

 

Pampas Power On Against Woeful Raptors
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Los Pampas made light work out of the American Raptors. The Buenos Aires side were 52-17 winners. They had the bonus point sealed well before half-time. In fact, Bernabé López Fleming, Justo Piccardo, and Santiago Pernas all scored tries in the opening quarter.

The American Raptors were never able to recover. Their assignment was not helped by injuries. Mikey Grandy was replaced by Will Crawford in just the 17th minute. John Lefevre also replaced Patrick Madden long before half-time.

While it was the Pampas backs who were enjoying the cheers from the crowd it was the work of the forwards which inspired the victory. N8 Joaquín Moro had an impressive assist try while hooker Ramiro Gurovich went over for the bonus point just after the half-hour mark.

The American Raptors scored a late try which Francisco Quinn converted. Quinn then landed a penalty in the second-half before Los Pampas resumed their scoring. They cut loose to end with a well-deserved and dominant win by eight tries to two.

SCORING

PAMPAS (52)
Try – B López Fleming (5′); J Piccardo (10′); S Pernas (18′); R Gurovich (31′); B Heit (52′); Penalty Try (56′); V Minoyetti 2 (68′, 72′)
Con – J de La Vega Mendía (6′, 10′, 19′, 52′); No Kick (56′); M Nogués (72′)

RAPTORS (17)
Try – M Vainikolo (39′); J Hidalgo (63′)
Con – F Quinn 2 (40′, 63′)
Pen – F Quinn (50′)
YC – F Pomponio (56′)

TEAMS

PAMPAS
1 Matías Medrano, 2 Ramiro Gurovich, 3 Javier Coronel, 4 Eliseo Fourcade, 5 Marcelo Toledo, 6 Manuel Bernstein (capt.), 7 Santiago Montagner, 8 Joaquín Moro, 9 Ignacio Inchauspe, 10 Joaquín de la Vega Mendía, 11 Bernabé López Fleming, 12 Justo Piccardo, 13 Juan Pablo Castro, 14 Santiago Pernas, 15 Marcos Eliçagaray

Replacements: 16 Valentino Minoyetti, 17 Javier Corvalán, 18 Tomás Rapetti, 19 Mateo Lorenzo, 20 Eliseo Chiavassa, 21 Bruno Heit, 22 Manuel Nogués, 23 Benjamín Elizalde

RAPTORS
1 Ma’ake Muti, 2 Diego Fortuny (capt.), 3 Facundo Pomponio, 4 Javon Camp-Villalobos, 5 Mikey Grandy, 6 Mo Vainikolo, 7 Aidan Christians, 8 Tommy Clark, 9 Devereaux Ferris, 10 Patrick Madden, 11 Tomi Morani, 12 Aki Pulu, 13 Watson Filikitonga, 14 Rufus McLean, 15 Francisco Quinn

Replacements: 16 Jackson Zabierek, 17 Clay Markoff, 18 Koby Baker, 19 Will Crawford, 20 Shawn Clark, 21 John Lefevre, 22 Zach Hall, 23 Jacob Hidalgo

 

Dogos Overcome Rain, Thunder and Lightning 
Jacareí, Brazil

Los Dogos are now 2-0 in Super Rugby Americas 2024. The Córdoba side thus join Los Pampas as the undefeated teams so far this season. The Córdoba side traveled to Jacareí, Brazil to come away with a 29-6 bonus point win on Saturday.

The match was not always pretty and there were delays. The match was forced to stop of a period of 15 minutes as a bolt of lighting struck the field. The players, officials and spectators all took shelter in the 19th minute.

The stoppage did not help the home team; Os Cobras had started well. It was 6-3 in favor of the home side when the match was interrupted. Lucas Spago landed two early penalties and Julián Hernández one.

Mateo Soler scored an opportunistic try in the 26th minute. It was the only try of the first-half. Hernández converted as the Argentines found breathing space. They would see out the remainder of the match comfortably.

The Dogos forwards took control in late in the third quarter. The squeezed the life out of Os Cobras and came away with three tries in the half. It meant a convincing 23 win by a margin of 23 points.

SCORING

COBRAS (6)
Pen – L Spago 3 (2′, 16′)
YC – M Santos (65′)

DOGOS (29)
Try – M Soler (26′); A Bildosola (56′); Penalty Try (65′); T Bartolini (72′)
Con – J Hernández 2 (27′, 57′); No Kick (56′)
Pen – J Hernández (13′)

TEAMS

COBRAS
1 Luciano Gabellieri, 2 Henrique Ribeiro, 3 Francisco Moreno, 4 Ben Donald, 5 Franco Carrera 6 Matheus Claudio (capt.), 7 Rafael Teixeira, 8 Pedro Henrique Soares Aparecido, 9 Felipe Gonçalves, 10 Lucas Spago, 11 Agustin Llano, 12 Victor Souza, 13 Joel Junior, 14 Sergio Silveira, 15 Robson Morais

Replacements: 16 Leonardo Souza, 17 Levy Marinho, 18 Jose Santucho, 19 Cleber Dias, 20 Renato Santos, 21 Maiki Santos, 22 Douglas Rauth, 23 Lucas Tranquez

DOGOS
1 Santiago Pulella, 2 Boris Wenger, 3 Octavio Filippa, 4 Lautaro Simes, 5 Franco Molina (capt.), 6 Aitor Bildosola, 7 Ignacio Gandini, 8 Efrain Elias, 9 Agustín Moyano, 10 Julián Hernández, 11 Ernesto Giudice, 12 Leonardo Gea Salim, 13 Agustín Segura, 14 Nahuel Romero, 15 Mateo Soler

Replacements: 16 Tomás Bartolini, 17 Juan Aguirre, 18 Pedro Delgado, 19 Lorenzo Colidio, 20 Felipe Villagrán, 21 Nicolás Viola, 22 Juan Bautista Baronio, 23 Faustino Sanchez Valarolo

 

Selknam Blow Strong Start Against Yacare 
Asunción, Paraguay

The final fixture of week two took place in Asunción, Paraguay on Saturday evening. Yacare were in search of improvement after losing heavily first up against Los Pampas. For Selknam the match marked the season opener.

It was the first competitive match for the Chileans since the World Cup. It was not a match they will wish to repeat. Selknam started well but blew their 20-14 half-them lead and were scoreless in the second-half.

N8 Alfonso Escobar opened the scoring with an impressive solo try. Yacare hit-back through fullback Juan Manuel Molinuevo though it was Selknam who looked the sharper. When Matías Garafulic converted Domingo Saavedra’s try, Selknam had a good lead late in the opening quarter.

Salvador Lues and Clemente Saavedra both burst through for clean breaks that did not result in points. In addition, two regulation penalties were turned down to kick for the corner only for Selknam to commit handling errors.

Yacare adjusted in the second-half to score all 20 points. Selknam were off their game. It was a dour showing which the coaching staff must now correct. The gameplay failed and poor decisions were made. Yacare got the win based on Selknam’s rugby on the day more than their own play.

Selknam were adventurous, particularly so, in the first-half. This involved quick-taps rather than sensible decisions. In contrast, the play-making from the Argentine pair of Joaquín Lamas and Juan Manuel Molinuevo succeeded in point scoring opportunities being realized. Molinuevo scored two tries in the match.

SCORING

YACARE (34)
Try – JM Molinuevo 2 (10′, 47′); A Zapata (27′); L Otaño (78′)
Con – J Lamas 4 (11′, 29′, 48′, 80′)
Pen – J Lamas (58′)
YC – T Mac Call (37′); R Portillo (51′); I Martinez (54′)

SELKNAM (20)
Try – A Escobar (4′); D Saavedra (17′)
Con – M Garafulic 2 (5′, 18′)
Pen – M Garafulic 2 (23′, 35′)
YC – J Eissmann (8′); J Carrasco (54′); J Larenas (65′)

TEAMS

YACARE
1 Ezequiel Reyes, 2 Axel Zapata (capt.), 3 Rolando Portillo, 4 Ignacio Martínez, 5 Lucio Anconetani, 6 Juan Cruz Pérez, 7 Felipe Puertas, 8 Nicolás Parada Heit, 9 Juan Cruz Strada, 10 Joaquin Lamas, 11 Juan González, 12 Sebastián Urbieta, 13 Ramiro Amarilla, 14 Thomas Mac Call, 15 Juan Manuel Molinuevo

Replacements: 16 Lucas Otaño, 17 Daniel Cabral, 18 Estéfano Aranda, 19 Ariel Núñez, 20 Enzo Sander, 21 Diego Miño, 22 Tomás Vanni, 23 Arturo Lopez

SELKNAM
1 Salvador Lues, 2 Tomás Dussaillant, 3 Iñaki Gurruchaga, 4 Santiago Pedrero, 5 Javier Eissmann, 6 Raimundo Martínez, 7 Clemente Saavedra (capt.), 8 Alfonso Escobar, 9 Marcelo Torrealba, 10 Nicolás Roger, 11 José Larenas, 12 Matías Garafulic, 13 Domingo Saavedra, 14 Franco Velarde, 15 Iñaki Delguy

Replacements: 16 Simón Donoso 17. Javier Carrasco 18. Baltazar Gurruchaga 19. Federico Albrisi 20. Inti Úbeda 21. Rafael Iriarte 22. Felipe Méndez 23. Martín Dumay