The USA Eagles held off a late charge by the Uruguay Teros at Fletcher's Fields, Markham on Saturday to claim third-place in the Finals the 2001 PARA Tournament.
With the US ahead 31-16 with only eight minutes of regular time to play, Uruguay threw everything into the attack to claim a brilliant individual try by outside-half Bernardo Amarillo at 77 minutes and a penalty-try at 79 minutes to bring the final score to 31-28.
The Eagles began well, playing a wide-open, enterprising rugby with San Francisco's Grant Wells trading penalty kicks with Uruguay's Juan Menchaca. 6-6. Then at 30-minutes the US won a Uruguayan ball deep in its own end, and set centre Phillip Eloff on a long run. Using wing Maklakai Delai as a foil, Eloff ran seventy- metres to score. Wells converted, but Menchaca hit another penalty to bring the half-time score to 13-9.
At 47-minutes US number 8 Kort Schubert fielded a poor Uruguay clearance and took the ball up, he passed to wing Jovesa Naivalu who rounded his man and scored from 25-metres, 18-9. Uruguay came back in its usual fashion mauling, mauling, mauling until it put wing-forward Nicolas Brignoni over at 50 minutes. Menchaca converted 18-16. A minute later Naivalu again took matters into his own hands, taking a wing-in pass and weaving through the South American defense to score under the posts, Wells converted 25-16.
Wells accounted for two penalties at 70- and 72-minutes bringing the US to its widest differential, 31-16. Then Uruguay mounted its last ditch scoring drive that nearly saw it claim victory, almost in the same fashion as it had against Canada on Wednesday night in Hamilton.
"We played well for 70-minutes," said US coach Duncan Hall, "but Uruguay played well for 80 minutes. It was a great relief to hear the final whistle.
"Uruguay are such a tough side to play against," he continued "But, I thought we played with more variety in our game today than we have all tournament. Though there was one try by Eloff that could be considered opportunistic, we constructed tries today, and looked threatening with the ball in hand."
"We had control for most of the match," said US Captain Dave Hodges. "We made hard work of it. We need more maturity and experience to learn how to hold onto leads and not let games get away from us. But, we had the heart to stick it out and I think the guys did well."
Uruguay, unlucky not to come away with a victory in its last two matches, proved tough opponents losing closely in all its games: to Argentina 32-27, Canada 14-8 and the USA 31-28 to earn tournament bonus points in all games for losses within 7-points.
The Teams:
United States: 1 Mike MacDonald, 2 Kirk Khasigian, 3 Paul Still, 4 Dave Hodges (c), 5 Tom Kelleher, 6 Olo Fifita, 7 Alex Magleby, 8 Kort Schubert, 9 Mose Timoteo, 10 Grant Wells, 11 Malakai Delai, 12 Phillip Eloff, 13 Link Wilfley, 14 Jovesa Naivalu, 15 Kurt Shuman
Reserves: Robbie Flynn, Juan Grobler, Tim Kluempers, Eric Reed
Uruguay: 15. Juan Menchaca 14. Juan Martin Marquez 13. Pedro Vecino 12. Joquain De Freitas 11.Emiliano Ibarra 10. Bernardo Amirillo 9.Martin Mendaro (Caffera 71 mins) 8.Juan Carlos Bado 7.Nicolas Grille 6.Nicolas Brigonini 5.Rodrigo Capo (Ponce De Leon 60 mins) 4. Juan Alzueta 3.Juan Machado (Storace 60 mins) 2.Francisco De Los Santos (Lamelas 64 mins) 1. Rodrigo Sanchez
Replacements: 16. Diego Lamelas 17. Guillermos Storace 18. Eduardo Berrutti 19. Augustin Ponce De Leon 20. Pablo Pagani 21. Emiliano Caffera 22. Hillario Canessa
Referee: Ian Hyde-Lay (Canada)
Touch Judges: Santiago Borsani (Argentina), Mr. Berry (Canada)
Attendance: 2,400
Points Scorers:
United States
Tries: Eloff P. 1, Naivalu J. 2
Conv: Wells G. 2
Pen K.: Wells G. 4
Uruguay
Try: Nicolas Brignoni, Bernardo Amarillo, Penalty try
Penalties: Juan Menchaca (3)
Conversion: Juan Menchaca
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