Uruguay’s u19’s side sounded a strong warning to South American rivals on Sunday. In the opening round of the 2016 Junior South American Championship Los Teritos hammered Paraguay 90-0.
The Four Nations tournament involves Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay with Chile being this year’s host nation. The hosts enjoyed a strong opening round performance, defeating Brazil 16-0 but round one was all about Uruguay.
The country’s High Performance program has succeeded in lifting the standard of play of the senior test team and benefits have been felt further down. Uruguay’s athletes were far better prepared physically than were Paraguay’s. This gave them superior fitness which, combined with their skill set, paved the way for a dominant victory.
Scoring opened in the third minute through Juan Martin Cattivelli. It would be the one and only penalty score of the match. The remaining points all came from tries and conversions.
Paraguay had no answer as Uruguay scored fourteen tries. Flanker Federico Bruno and winger Martín Fittipaldo both scored hat-tricks. Among the remaining scorers was second-rower Manuel Leindekar, a player to have been involved in the Oyonnax academy in France.
With just a 50% conversion rate from tries Uruguay finished with far fewer points than they could potentially have scored. More accurate kicking would have seen a win by more than 100 points.
Both Uruguay and Paraguay have little time to recover. Both countries will be involved in round two matches on Wednesday. Uruguay will play against Brazil while Paraguay will face the host nation.
SCORERS
URUGUAY
Try: Bruno (3), Fittipaldo (3), Grille (2), Civetta (2), Portela (2), Piazza, García, Leindekar
Conversion: Cattivelli (2), Piazza (5)
Penalty: Cattivelli
PARAGUAY
N/A
Yellow Cards
18th min Samuel Villalba (PAR)
42nd min Andrés Rojas (PAR)
Con un penal de Juan Martín Cattivelli (3’) se inauguró la cuenta. De ahí en más, los tries celestes fueron cayendo uno tras otro, hasta completar 15 en la jornada, dos de ellos convertidos por Cattivelli y cuadro por Alejo Piazza.
URUGUAY
1 Agustín Sosa, 2 Yamandu Arburuas, 3 Ignacio Peculo, 4 Joaquín García, 5 Manuel Leindakar, 6 Manuel Ardao, 7 Federico Bruno, 8 Santiago Civetta, 9 Joaquín Freitas, 10 Juan Martín Cattivelli, 11 Valentín Grille, 12 Agustín Dellacorte, 13 Manuel Portela, 14 Martín Fittipaldo, 15 Mateo Soneira.
PARAGUAY
1 Emilio Gorostiafa, 2 Alberto Fernández, 3 Matías Ferreira, 4 Mariano Garcete, 5 Rubén Guerrero, 6 Francisco Bareiro, 7 Samuel Villalba, 8 Esteban Benítez, 9 Gastón Navas, 10 Nicolás Heisecke, 11 Andrés Rojas, 12 Camilo Orrego, 13 Jonathan Rodríguez, 14 Fabricio Cabrera, 15 Joaquín Auge