Yacare Overcome Raptors in Asuncion

Yacare overcame the American Raptors on Saturday. The Paraguayan side were 20-10 winners at home in Asunción. The contest was far from a classic; the sides were locked-in to a 7-7 scoreline at half-time and few opportunities were capitalized on.

Tomi Morani gave the Raptors a great start. The center’s 6th minute try was converted by Francisco Quinn. The match remained 7-0 until eight minutes from half-time. The turning moment came when Nicolás Parada Heit, gave Tommy Clark a costly lesson. Clark did not perform his flanker duty. In not watching Parada Heit break off a scrum, the N8 was able to bump off fly half Ignacio Mieres for the try.

Parada Heit got the better of Mieres in the run. The former Puma did not recover from the bump and was substituted several minutes later. Meanwhile, Joaquín Lamas converted the try to level the scores.

Lamas was back on the scoresheet two minutes after half-time. He landed a penalty to give Yacare the lead for the first time. The Paraguayan side went on to remain in front for the duration. Lamas landed a 67the minute penalty and converted a try with eight minutes left. The try was scored by scrum-half Juan Cruz Strada.

Yacare’s victory sees the team on 32 SRA points. Peñarol are 4th with 27. Yacare’s regular season is now over while Peñarol face Los Dogos next weekend. The American Raptors now travel to Chile to face Selknam. Neither team can reach the Semi Finals nor change their overall position.

LINEUPS

YACARE (20)
Try (2) – N Parada Heit (32′); J Cruz Strada (71′)
Con (2) – J Lamas 2 (33′, 72′)
Pen (2) – J Lamas 2 (42′, 67′)

RAPTORS (10)
Try (1) – T Morani (6′)
Con (1) – F Quinn (7′)
Pen (1) – F Quinn (61′)
YC (2) – J Camp-Villalovos (51′); F Pomponio (70′)

LINEUPS

YACARE
1 Ezequiel Reyes, 2 Ignacio Palillo, 3 Luis Enrique Quinteros, 4 Lucio Anconetani, 5 Mariano Garcete (capt.), 6 Juan Pérez Rachel, 7 Felipe Puertas 8 Nicolás Parada Heit, 9 Juan Cruz Strada, 10 Joaquín Lamas, 11 Juan González, 12 Sebastián Urbieta, 13 Ramiro Amarilla, 14 Arturo López, 15 Ramiro Moyano

Replacements: 16 Lucas Otãno, 17 Camilo Blasco, 18 Rolando Portillo, 19 Juan José Heisecke, 20 Ariel Núñez 21 Gonzalo Barreiro, 22 Tomás Vanni, 23 Joaquín Mussi

RAPTORS
1 Ma’ake Muti, 2 Diego Fortuny (capt.), 3 Facundo Pomponio, 4 Javon Camp-Villalovos, 5 Mikey Grandy, 6 Shawn Clark, 7 Tommy Clark, 8 Diego Magno, 9 John Lefevre, 10 Ignacio Mieres, 11 Francisco Quinn, 12 Watson Fikitonga, 13 Thomas Morani, 14 Jacob Hidalgo, 15 Rufus McLean

Replacements: 16 Jackson Zabierek, 17 Clay Markoff, 18 Koby Baker, 19 William Crawford, 20 Tavius Sykora-Matthess, 21 Devereaux Ferris, 22 Zach Hall, 23 Patrick Madden

MATCH HIGHLIGHTS

OFFICIALS

Referee: Nehuén Jauri Rivero (AR)
Assistants: Juan Manuel Martínez (AR); Adrian Bogado (PY)
TMO: Marco Demestri (PY)