Americas Rugby News Rugby news from across the Americas!
For the second time in 2024 Argentina has beaten Australia at u20 level. Argentina won in Australia during the Rugby Championship u20 and won again in a match dominated by rain. The impressive display saw Los Pumitas not conceding a try against the Junior Wallabies in the 5th Place Final on Friday at Cape Town, South Africa.
Captain Efraín Elías played all of the match and thus ended the tournament having played very second of all five matches for his country. Benjamín Elizalde also played in every match. The only difference was that Elizalde was substituted off against Fiji. Both men had sensational tournament and look like being Pumas in the making; perhaps as early as this year’s Rugby Championship.
The 5th Place Final had only one try. It was a beautiful score involving every Pumita on the field. The scrum shows the Junior Wallabies back before N8 Juan Pedro Bernasconi ran from the back and links with Tomás Di Biase. Every back touched the ball with Timoteo Silva going over in the right corner.
The 25th minute score made the match 5-3 in favor of Los Pumitas. Neither side would add first-half points. Australia’s score was very early on; fly half Harry Mclaughlin-Phillips slotted a penalty in the opening minute of play.
Harry Mclaughlin-Phillips also scored for Australia in the second-half. His 60th minute penalty was Australia’s only other score of the contest. His opposite, Santino Di Lucca, landed thre second-half penalties for Argentina who ultimately won the match by 9 points.
| SCORING |
AUSTRALIA (6)
Pen (2) – H Mclaughlin-Phillips 2 (1′, 60′)
YC (2) – K Pritchard (22′); J McLeod (44′)
ARGENTINA (14)
Try (1) – T Silva (25′)
Pen (3) – S Di Lucca 3 (54′, 67′, 77′)
YC – T Medina (37′); J Penoucos (56′)
| LINE-UPS |
AUSTRALIA
1 Lington Eili, 2 Ottavio Tuipulotu, 3 Nick Bloomfield, 4 Toby Macpherson (capt.), 5 Harvey Cordukes, 6 Aden Ekanayake, 7 Dane Sawers, 8 Jack Harley, 9 Dan Nelson, 10 Harry Mclaughlin-Phillips, 11 Archie Saunders, 12 Jarrah Mcleod, 13 Kadin Pritchard, 14 Ronan Leahy, 15 Shane Wilcox
Replacements: 16 Oniti Finau, 17 Nathaniel Tiitii, 18 Trevor King, 19 Eamon Doyle, 20 Austin Durbidge, 21 Billy Dickens, 22 Boston Fakafanua, 23 Angus Staniforth
ARGENTINA
1 Diego Correa (Estanislao Rodríguez 45′), 2 Marcos Camerlinckx (Juan Greising Revol 45′), 3 Tomás Rapetti (Gael Galván 65′), 4 Efraín Elías (capt.), 5 Álvaro García Iandolino (Juan Penoucos 47′), 6 Ignacio Torrado, 7 Santos Fernández de Oliveira (Agustín Sarelli 47′), 8 Juan Pedro Bernasconi, 9 Tomás Di Biase (Jerónimo Llorens 67′), 10 Santino Di Lucca, 11 Franco Rossetto, 12 Faustino Sánchez Valarolo, 13 Tomás Medina, 14, Timoteo Silva, 15 Benjamín Elizalde.
| MATCH HIGHLIGHTS |
