Argentina smash Uruguay to win Americas Pacific Challenge

The Argentina XV have repeated as winners of the Americas Pacific Challenge, sealing their victory by humiliating Uruguay ‘A’ by a score of 82-7. A scoreline of 54-0 stood at halftime as the home side were unable to cope with the pace of the Argentine attack, their only success coming in the scrum.

Sebastián Cancelliere broke free just five minutes into the match for the opening score and it was all downhill from there. He had scored a second before the break, while fullback Juan Cruz Mallía took it one step further touching down three times in the space of 16 minutes. Tomás de la Vega, Santiago Álvarez, and Rodrigo Bruni all added singles in the first half.

Fortunes were slightly better for Uruguay in the second half, but only as far as they managed to cross the try line once. Franco Molina raced away for another Argentine score before at last Uruguay managed to get through some phases and Juan Diego Ormaechea dove in to put something on the board. Joaquin Prada converted but that was as much as they would get.

A second run-in for Bruni was followed in quick succession by one by the impressive Nicolás Cantarutti, who kicked his 10th conversion following his own try. He would finish with 27 points in all with one more kick following up a try to Axel Zapata.

With that another excellent calendar year for the Argentina XV has come to a close. A few select players may be taken to Europe with the Pumas but the majority will take a break before reconvening in time for the Americas Rugby Championship in February.

Uruguay have suffered a setback after performing so well in recent weeks. Some of those who might have hoped to get the call for Los Teros might now be left in the cold. At the very least reputations have been damaged and there is much to be done before January’s World Cup Qualifiers against Canada.

 

SCORING

ARGENTINA 82
Tries – S. Cancelliere 2 (5’, 36’), T. de la Vega (15’), J. Mallía 3 (23’, 28’, 39’), S. Álvarez (25’), R. Bruni 2 (32’, 64’), F. Molina (48’), N. Cantarutti (68’), A. Zapata (73’)
Cons – N. Cantarutti 11/12 (6’, 7’, 24’, 29’, 33’, 37’, 40’, 49’, 65’, 69’, 74’)
Yellow cards – R. Tejerizo (77’)

URUGUAY 7
Tries – J. Ormaechea (58’)
Cons – J. Prada 1/1 (59’)

 

TEAMS

ARGENTINA XV
1 Felipe Arregui, 2 Gaspar Baldunciel, 3 Benjamín Espinal, 4 Diego Galetto, 5 Ignacio Larrague, 6 Tomás de la Vega, 7 Lautaro Bavaro (capt.), 8 Rodrigo Bruni, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 10 Nicolás Cantarutti, 11 Rodrigo Etchart, 12 Juan Cappiello, 13 Santiago Álvarez, 14 Sebastián Cancelliere, 15 Juan Cruz Mallía

Replacements: 16 Axel Zapata, 17 Roberto Tejerizo, 18 Alejo Brem, 19 Franco Molina, 20 Mariano Romanini, 21 Juan Cruz González, 22 Franco Cuaranta, 23 Bautista Delguy

URUGUAY ‘A’
1 Matías Benítez, 2 Germán Kessler, 3 Mario Sagario, 4 Diego Magno, 5 Diego Ayala, 6 Rodolfo Garese, 7 Gonzalo Soto, 8 Manuel Diana, 9 Guillermo Lijtenstein (capt.), 10 Gastón Gibernau, 11 Gastón Mieres, 12 Agustín Della Corte, 13 Joaquín Prada, 14 Leandro Leivas, 15 Francisco López

Replacements: 17 Facundo Gattas, 17 Carlos Pombo, 18 Felipe Inciarte, 19 Mathias Palomeque, 20 Juan Diego Ormaechea, 21 Lucas Durán, 22 Nicolás Freitas, 23 Leandro Segredo

 

MATCH OFFICIALS

Referee: Vlad Iordachescu (FRR)