Rugby: Argentina pulls out 39:23 win over Canada

Friday, March 1, 2019 ~ LANGFORD

by Mary P Brooke ~ West Shore Voice News

The Men’s 15s Rugby match tonight saw Argentina’s Men’s 15s pull out an aggressive win against Canada’s team at Westhills Stadium in Langford.

The confident Argentina team showed control and exercised muscle throughout the first half. In the first minute of the game Argentina scored their first of three goals of the first half. At half time the scoreboard screeched out 22 for the visiting team vs 6 for the home team. The game wrapped up with a 39:23 accomplishment by Argentina over Canada.

Outside half Gordon McRorie (#10) said a remarkable run down the field by Canada “doesn’t happen too often — it’s something we definitely need to keep improving on and keep trying,” he told West Shore Voice News on-field after the game.

Canada’s team captain Lucas Rumball (#7) had a “mixed bag of emotions” after the game. “I’m proud of the team and a lot of things we did. Lots of good came out of today,” he told West Shore Voice News on-field after the game. “We made some mistakes and got punished for them,” he added, however.

Remarking on that field-long run: “We were capitalizing off a mistake by (the Argentina team). It’s something we haven’t seen in our game in the last few months, something that’s starting to come out. We’re definitely taking more of our opportunities and coming away with points,” Rumball said.

“They dropped the ball and we pounced on it. We played what was in front of us. That’s all we can ask from the guys,” Rumball told West Shore Voice News. “You can’t write that up, you can’t draw that up. You can’t really practice that. It’s the intuition, you’re playing games over and over again, we start to pick up that skill.”

Later Canada Coach Kingsley Jones told media: “We played against a very good team.” He talked about the ability to take advantage of errors by the other team. But admitting: “We made a lot of errors and we got punished for it. A dropped ball can result in 7 points. We got better as the game went on,” said Jones.

Canada’s coach said he was pleased that all players got to be in active play this evening. “We used the whole bench tonight.” But he was disappointed “with some of those decisions against us”, said Jones.

“By and large it was quite the scoreboard,” said Jones. There was “a little bit of lack of composure, we need to be more composed.”

After the game, the Man of the Match award from HSBC Canada Sevens was presented to Argentina XV’s Matias Osadczuk on-field by Langford Mayor Stew Young.

About 600 local fans showed up (more than last week’s cold February 22 game). There was more enthusiasm by Canadian fans for last week’s Chilean team than tonight for the powerhouse Argentinians.  The home-town advantage worked for Canada last week, not as much this week.

Argentina XV had the lead in the ARC standings going into this game, and will maintain that, despite the one remaining game between Canada and the US in Seattle next Friday (March 8).

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• Team Captains ready for Canada vs Argentina March 1
• Canada beats Chle 56:0 in Langford, February 22
• Playing even if it snows (pre-game February 22, including roster)
• Article: Canada/Chile team captains this week (February 20)
• February 22 and March 1 games will be broadcast live at 7 pm PT on TSN 5. The game in Seattle on March 8 will be streamed live on www.tsn.ca/TSNApp
  with a tape delay to 8pm PT on TSN 2.