It was a bizarre opening to the South American half of the evening on Tuesday. For twenty minutes there was little continuity as both teams made mistakes and had trouble adjusting to referee Bryan Arciero’s interpretations at the breakdown. Argentina took several penalties early on and after only nine minutes Valentin Cruz was sent to the bin for not rolling away, giving Jeronimo Etcheverry a chance to bounce over a penalty off the uprights for an unlikely early lead to Uruguay.
After a long period of more inaccuracy Cruz returned and had his own shot following another breakdown infringement, this time from Uruguay. The uprites were split and it was tied three-all with twenty five minutes played.
After several minutes of deadlock the ball popped out of a wheeled scrum and Argentinean captain Benjamin Macome picked up and ran forty metres, sold a dummy, and then found left wing Matias Masera in close support to score the first try. Cruz missed the tough conversion but at last the game was starting to open up.
After repeated pressure from lineout drives Uruguay conceded a penalty on the stroke of halftime and Cruz slotted his second penalty from in front of the posts to give his side an eight point lead.
After surely hearing some stern words during the break Argentina came out fired up and immediately worked there way deep into Uruguayan territory. The defense held at first but three penalties in a space of a couple minutes were enough to earn a yellow card for Agustin Alonso, and an easy penalty goal for Cruz.
The fatigue was now starting to show for Uruguay and they couldn’t get their hands on the ball. A clearing kick was returned sixty metres by Facundo Barrea for a classy individual score. Another Cruz conversion and it looked like Argentina could run away with it. It wasn’t to be, however, as Los Teros showed great courage to fight back and score a try via replacement hooker Oscar Duran, added to a lovely Etcheverry conversion to make the final 21-10 in favor of the Jaguars.
In a somewhat stilted match there weren’t a lot of standout players. Second row Matias Alemanno played well for Argentina, though he did knock on a couple times at the lineout, and Lisandro Ahualli was dynamic in the back row, but man of the match in a losing effort was Diego Magno. The Uruguayan no8 seemed to be ubiquitous throughout making tackles, carrying the ball forward, and winning lineouts.
Los Teros will take heart from the performance and a win over the United States on Saturday could be within their reach. The Jaguars will probably feel somewhat let down, but still appear to be front runners heading into Saturday’s decisive match against the Canadians. Worryingly they may have to do so without first choice hooker Bruno Postiglioni who suffered a knee injury late in the match.
SCORING
09 mins – Jeronimo Etcheverry pen 3-0
24 mins – Valentin Cruz pen 3-3
36 mins – Matias Masera try 3-8
40 mins – Valentin Cruz 3-11
49 mins – Valentin Cruz pen 3-14
55 mins – Facundo Barrea try 3-19
55 mins – Valentin Cruz con 3-21
70 mins – Oscar Duran 8-21
70 mins – Jeronimo Etcheverry 10-21
CARDS
09 mins – Valentin Cruz yellow (not rolling away)
49 mins – Agustin Alonso yellow (not rolling away)
URUGUAY
Jeronimo Etcheverry; Pablo Bueno (Gaston Mieres 62), Santiago Gibernau, Rodrigo Martinez, Francisco Favaro; Rodrigo Silva, Francisco Vecino; Rodolfo de Mula (Alejo Corral 62), Arturo Avalo (capt.) (Oscar Duran 62), Juan Rombys (Francisco Jimenez 71); Mateo Sanguinetti (Franco Lamanna 65), Mathias Palomeque; Agustin Alonso, Sebastian Sagario, Diego Magno.
ARGENTINA
Ramiro Moyano; Facundo Barrea, Matias Orlando, Javier Rojas (Roman Miralles 72), Matias Masera; Valentin Cruz (Santiago Gonzalez Iglesias 72), Marcos Bollini (Tomas Cubelli 56); Ignacio Saenz (Bruno Postiglioni 56 {Juan Gomez 65}), Martin Garcia Veiga, Ramiro Herrera; Matias Alemanno, Cesar Fruttero; Alejandro Campos (Tomas de la Vega 30), Benjamin Macome (capt.) (Rodrigo Bruno 65), Lisandro Ahualli.
MATCH OFFICIALS
Referee: Bryan Arciero (Canada)
Assistant Referee: Chris Assmus (Canada)
Assistant Referee: Karen Lozada (Canada)
