Tourists return home Champions
Meat, Rugby, meat, Rugby, some more meat, a celebration and then a long plane flight home pretty much sums up what was an outstanding Sydney University tour to Argentina. In a country where the hospitality of our hosts was only surpassed by the generosity of the BBQ meat portions they served us, our players resembled a small army of open eyed, wide smiling westerners, stumbling on their basic Spanish and struggling to come to terms with 11pm dinners and celebrations that ended at sunrise. The rugby was passionate and so were the people.
The tour started with two days of training in Buenos Aires at the excellent facilities provided generously by the C.U.B.A club, the associate team of Buenos Aires University. 14 hours behind Sydney time, the first few days challenged the touring group as we battled Jet Lag but the players were buoyed by the stories of the eight players who had spent 2 weeks traveling South America before joining the tour. The group attacked training with great enthusiasm and the team that consisted of players from every grade in the club gelled very quickly. The Thursday night game produced a close and quality trial with Sydney Uni eventually winning 19-7.
On Friday the touring group flew to Bahia Blanca, a small city 700km South East of Buenos Aires. Here we were greeted by our hosts and took part in the official opening ceremony for the Patagonia Cup. This is the 6th time the biannual tournament has been held, with the 2010 tournament hosting 6 rugby teams and for the first time 10 women’s hockey teams. The tournament consisted of 4 competition days over the course of a 7 day week with rugby running from Saturday through to Saturday. The players met the billets with which they would spend the next 8 nights.
The draw favoured Sydney university with the team only having one 40 min game on the 1st Saturday, a relief after the solid hit out against C.U.B.A 2 days before. We met the Kiwi team, Christchurch High Old Boys in the 1st game, Haka and all. In a close game the team came away with a victory 11-3 over the 6 time tourists.
Day two had the university team drawn against the host Club ‘El Nacional’ and regional team Santa Rosa. After some poor kicking on day one, a more enterprising attack scored two solid victories against these two teams beating ‘El Nacional’ 19-0 and Santa Rosa 31-0. Josh Dillon, Toby L’Estrange and Tom English all stood out in some long range backline attacks and Hamish King supported well from 7.
We had a two day break here which was well need after 4 reduced days of rugby in 4 days. When play resumed on the 3rd competition day we were drawn against the two stronger local teams, Sportivo and Universitario. Sportivo have twice won the tournament and were reeling after a ‘questionable’ refereeing decision from Australian referee Tim Wills had seen them go down in a close game against the Kiwi’s. The Syd Uni team were focused and ready after Dick Laffin spoke to the players about the respect that these teams demanded as hard working, passionate amateur players. The uni players responded to the challenge with a very clinical and fast 1st half performance to lead 43-0 at half time, a powerful display in 20min of rugby. The 2nd half was much more evenly contested with the score unchanged. The Universitario game was much closer with a harder fought win 17-0, with the team experiencing a lengthy attack on their line late in the game in true Argentinean fashion where all 15 of the oppositions players huddled around the ruck for 6-7min of pick and go efforts, all to no avail.
The Finals day saw Sydney University pitted against the Christchurch Old Boys team again. The game started with the speed and power the team was hoping for and some strong phase play lead to an attacking scrum in close to the Kiwi’s line, and a pushover try to number eight Adam Campbell. The Kiwi’s replied with a penalty goal to have the scores at 5-3 at Half time.
In a second half that saw the kiwi’s draw the game and then take the lead three times, Sydney University had to fight for every minute. Some outstanding general play kicking from Christchurch fullback James Lash kept Sydney University neutral in the battle for territory, and hindered a lot of good attacking play from the Sydney team. One such kick lead to a mistake in our 22m area, and a 2nd phase try to the Kiwi’s. Sydney University responded with some strong ball carrying from forwards Hugh Hawkins and Dave McDuling, leading to a linebreak and very nearly a try. After a number of strong push over attempts from the scrum, Matt Schwager used the scrum distraction to snipe blind and score to take the score to 10 all. The Christchurch team then took the lead twice with penalty goals, but each of their efforts were equaled by the boot of Justin Bosilkovski. Late in the game at 16 all, Lash again kicked a 40m goal which seemed it would win the game for the New Zealanders. The final siren sounded, but was not heeded by the Students, who drove hard at the Christchurch line. A rushed kick over the dead ball line by the kiwi side, thinking it was full time, lead to a scrum being awarded to the Uni team as the Argentinean referee continued on his own time. After good scrum pressure again by the Piggies, Jono Jenkins used a wheel in the scrum to pick the ball up from the back and carry two defenders over in the corner to give the Students the lead 21-19. The conversion attempt was unsuccessful, but still the referee deemed there to be time to play. From the kick off Uni failed to find touch, and after three or four phases of play, the ambiguous breakdown rulings of the Argentinean referee’s lead to a late penalty to the Kiwi side, 53m out. The kick was lined up, and after some huge kicks already from the New Zealand fullback, the crowd of three to four thousand usually vocal South Americans was hushed in anticipation. The ball was stuck, went high, and then right of the uprights to give the Students an undefeated tour and a tournament victory in their first visit to the Patagonia Cup.
The rugby on tour was different, but passionate and hard fought in all contests. The hospitality was the same, different but always warm and passionate. Our players were opened up to the true essence of the amateur game with the Argentinean’s commonly referring to the importance of the ‘third half’, and strongly defending importance of the social characteristics of the game. Our players experienced a local farm day with traditional dancing and beach day, and were warmly hosted to yet another BBQ by the local university team ‘Universitario’. New friendships were easily made, memories will be strong and Bahia Blanca will now resemble a small satellite of our Camperdown campus with most boys swapping their Syd Uni gear for local kit.
