USA down Canada, remain unbeaten in America’s Rugby title defence
LOS ANGELES: The United States scored 15 unanswered points in a dominant second-half display Saturday en route to a 29-10 victory over Canada in the Americas Rugby Championship.
Just one score separated the two sides at halftime at Papa Murphy’s Park in Sacramento, California.
Nate Augspurger sneaked around the corner for an early US try, with Will Magie slotting the conversion.
A flowing attack then ended with Ryan Matyas cutting through for another converted try.
Canada kept in touch, however, as DTH van der Merwe found Patrick Parfrey alone on the left flank to dive into the corner.
Brock Staller converted to narrow the gap to 14-7 and that’s where they stood at the break.
Canada struck first after the interval when Staller put a penalty goal over from 40 meters to trim the deficit to four. After that it was virtually all Eagles. Hanco Germishuys, the in-form flanker powered past three defenders for a try and Magie made it three-for-three before Will Hooley slotted his first career test points to stretch the lead.
Another penalty from Hooley was followed by a try from Matyas as the Eagles stretched their unbeaten run over Canada to seven tests.
The victory put the United States in first place in the standings after two rounds, pushing them ahead of Uruguay on points difference.
Earlier Saturday, Argentina XV overpowered Chile in Ushuaia 57-12 to post their first victory of the tournament.
Argentina dictated the tempo throughout and produced the first try of the contest, through Santiago Portillo in the 15th minute.
Tomas Videla, Axel Zapata, Francisco Ferronato and Tomas Granella also scored tries for Argentina, who led 245 at half-time.
Next Saturday the United States host Chile in Fullerton, California, Canada host Brazil and Argentina visit Uruguay.
Uruguay had extended their unbeaten run to 13 tests with a hard-fought 2718 victory over Brazil in Sao Paulo on Friday.
Los Teros used 24 unanswered points to recover from an 18-3 half-time deficit and make it two wins in two matches. - AFP