Rugbyfest at Daceyville—Pacific Rugby Cup, Junior Gold Cup and Under 20s

On Friday there was a rugbyfest of four games at the David Phillips Sports Field in Daceyville.

The day started with a Pacific Rugby Cup game between the NSW Gen Blue team and the Argentina Pampas XV, which was followed by a trial game for the NSW Colts Under 20 squad against an Australian  Barbarians team.

Then, under the lights, came Under 15 and Under 17 Junior Gold Cup games between Sydney South and South Australia—and some of the best rugby of the day was played by the youngsters.

Pampas XV 36—Gen Blue 16

The Waratahs reserve players and invited players competed well in the first half but eventually the power of the Pampas XV forwards overcame the Gen Blue team, especially in the scrums.

Gen Blue started well after Horne delivered a spot-on pass to Carraro, who scored a try after weaving his way through the middle of the Pampas XV, much like he did for the Waratahs against the Force two weeks before.

The rest of the half was an arm wrestle, and after penalty goals were slotted the score was 10-9 to the home side at oranges.

A close score, but you could see signs that the physicality of the Pampas XV was starting to take effect.

Refreshed, the home team started well after the break and forced the Pampas XV to infringe.  When McKibbin kicked the goal the score was 13-9 to Gen Blue.

After a penalty kick for the line Pampas XV got a lineout in a handy position and after a perfunctory drive Puma test player Tomas Cubelli saw that too many defenders had been sucked into the maul and scooted over the goal line untouched.

After the conversion Pampas XV lead 16-13 but Gen Blue got back up to the other end of the field and forced another penalty: 16-16.

For the rest of the game Gen Blue spoiled any chances they had when they struggled to hold onto the ball in the humid conditions,  At the same time the physicality of the Pampas XV and their stronger reserves, kicked in, and the home team was fortunate to contain the damage.

Encouraged by the noisy Pampas XV coaching contingent, reserve back Javier Rojas scored the second try for the visitors after Cubelli kicked through for him (see photo).

There was more good-natured barracking from the visitors bench when the Pampas XV raided down the left-hand side of a confused Gen Blue defence and an inside pass beat the last defender.

After putting the icing on the cake with a penalty goal, the Pampas XV finished with a well-deserved victory, 33-16.

The Pampas XV had six test players in their starting side (to one for the Gen Blue team) and their experience and strength, plus their powerful scrummaging and counter-rucking, were too much for the home side.

Of the four Pacific Rugby Cup teams I have seen this year, they are the strongest and their clash with the Fiji Warriors at the end of the tournament should be a cracking game.

After defeating ACT A and Samoa A in their first two games  NSW Gen Blue Coach Tim Rapp said this about the loss:

We started off strongly and really showed our range of attacking abilities; however handling errors hindered our ability to retain possession and cost us against a powerful Argentinian pack. The guys will take a lot from this match and Gen Blue will bounce back stronger.

Skipper Pat McCutcheon had a sterling performance and openside flanker, and Jed Holloway was tireless on the blindside. Rob Horne had some good moments and Invited Players Seilala Lam (hooker) and Mali Hingano (outside centre) tackled aggressively.  Hingano was handy on attack also; he can’t be too far away from an EPS berth somewhere.

Tala Gray had a sound comeback at no. 8 and showed no effect from his injury suffered against the Blues in a trial game.

Some of the others had as much difficulty with the power of the Argentine players as they did with handling the slippery ball.  Fullback Cam Crawford had an unhappy game, but playing on after receiving a heavy knock in the second half did not make things better for him.

Teams:[one_half last=”no”]

Gen Blue: 1 Jeremy Tilse, 2 Tolu Latu, 3 Tim Metcher, 4 Jarrod Barry, 5 Loma Kaveinga, 6 Jed Holloway, 7 Pat McCutcheon (c), 8 Tala Gray, 9 Brendan McKibbin, 10 Jonno Lance, 11 Joel Brooks, 12 Rob Horne, 13 Matt Carraro, 14 Ben Volavola, 15 Cam Crawford.

Replacements: 16 Mike Ala’alatoa, 17 Hugh Roach, 18 Sam Talakai, 19 Seilala Lam, 20 James Cunningham, 21 Matt Lucas, 22 Mali Hingano, 23 Pieter Engelbrecht.[/one_half][one_half last=”yes”]

Pampas XV: 1 Lucas Noguera Paz, 2 Matías Cortese, 3 Bruno Postiglioni, 4 Matías Alemanno, 5 Tomás Lavanini, 6 Javier Ortega Desio, 7 Tomás de La Vega, 8 Antonio Ahualli de Chazal, 9 Tomás Cubelli (c), 10 Santiago González Iglesias, 11 Manuel Montero, 12 Jerónimo de La Fuente, 13 Matías Moroni, 14 Matías Orlando, 15 Román Miralles.

Replacements: 16 Santiago Iglesias Valdez, 17 Julián Montoya, 18 Tomás Ramírez, 19 Lucas Ponce, 20 Rodrigo Baez, 21 Martín Landajo, 22 Tomás Carrio, 23 Javier Rojas.[/one_half]

Click on right arrow for Page 2 and reports on the Under 20s trial and Junior Gold cup matches