Buenos Aires – The visiting South African side, the struggling Southern Kings, were handed a rugby lesson in the art of running rugby by their hosts, the Jaguares, who scored 11 tries en route to a 73-27 victory at the Estadio Jose Amalfitani, Velez Sarsfield, in Buenos Aires, on Saturday evening, after leading 40-15 at the break.
There was never any doubt about the outcome of this Super Rugby clash from the time the South American side which included several national team caps crossed the whitewash four times in the opening 18 minutes. The Jaguares managed to keep up with the clock at a rate of a point a minute by the time the halftime break dawned.
The match itself was always ahead of the clock though and by the time the 80-minute try-fest ended there were 100 points on the scoreboard. From start to finish, defence played second fiddle to attack as 15 tries were scored.
At the start of the second half, Kings wing Luzuko Vulindlu was given a yellow card by referee Stuart Berry after a dangerous tackle in the air.
The victory meant that the Jaguares, coming into the match on the back of a seven-match losing streak, bagged their second win in their debut season to sit third in South African Conference Two, with the Port Elizabeth-based Kings at the bottom of that table in the southern hemisphere franchise championship.
Scorers: Jaguares 73 (40): Tries: Juan Martin Hernandez, Santiago Cordero, Leonardo Senatore (3), Nicolas Sánchez, Agustín Creevy, Manuel Montero, Matías Alemanno, Emiliano Boffelli, Martin Landajo. Conversions: Sanchez 9
Kings 27 (15): Tries: Chris Cloete, Stefan Watermeyer, Thembelani Bholi, Steven Sykes. Conversions: Elgar Watts (2). Penalty: Watts
– ANA