Australian teams 0-6 against foreign opposition after Reds’ second-half shocker against Jaguares
On the back of a powerful rolling-maul, the Jaguares scored four second secondhalf tries to come from behind to beat the Reds 43-27 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, yesterday.
The Reds burst out of the blocks by scoring two quick tries and took a 24-12 lead into half-time. But the Jaguares outscored the Reds 31-3 in the second half to seal their second win of the season.
The home side benefited from a 13-3 penalty count and the Jaguares made the Reds pay.
Hooker Julian Montoya scored a hat-trick, while his replacement Santiago Socino also scored a try at the back of the maul.
The Reds have now lost three straight matches to start the season, while Australia’s Super Rugby sides are 0-6 against foreign opposition in 2020.
The turning point in the match came midway through the secondhalf when the Reds’ scrum was controversially penalised on the Jaguares’ five metre line despite the visitors appearing to gain the clear ascendancy. Tight-head prop Taniela Tupou was deemed not be scumming straight.
From the penalty, the Jaguares cleared their line and after a high tackle from captain Liam Wright and a series of penalties on their own line the Reds’ skipper was shown a yellow card.
With Wright in the sin-bin, the Jaguares scored three converted tries in the space of seven minutes to run away with the game.
“We were simply outclassed,”
Wright said.
“They were really, really good. “We lost our primary sources of go-forward and attacking ball and our scrum and our lineout we weren’t getting reward for that, so they pounced on a lot of opportunities and we just made more errors which we can’t do and they took every single one of them.”
Halves Tate McDermott and James O’Connor were positives for the Reds, as was Jordan Petaia’s replacement Hunter Paisami who was excellent both sides of the ball. It was McDermott who scored the opening try for the Reds in the 11th minute after bursting onto an inside offload from O’Connor, who took the line on and found his half on his inside shoulder.
7-0 quickly became 14-0 as Wright finished off some excellent transition play from the Reds on the fringes.
The home side hit back after 24 minutes when Montoya scored his first of three tries.
But two tries in seven minutes to Feauai-Sautia, who was also fortunate not to be sinbinned for leading with the shoulder and making high contact in a tackle, opened up a 24-7 lead.
Like last week against the Lions though, the Reds conceded on the stroke of half-time as Emiliano Boffelli scored from a cross-field kick. Making matters worse, the Jaguares scored straight after halftime as the Reds turned the ball over.
A penalty to new fullback Jock Campbell looked like it stopped the momentum as the Reds managed to get out to a 27-22 lead.
But after the Reds’ scrum was penalised soon after there was no coming back for the Reds, who lacked the experience across the team to be able to stop the Jaguares.
Results: Blues 8-25 Crusaders, Rebels 24-10 Waratahs, Lions 30-33 Stormers, Sunwolves 17-43 Chiefs, Hurricanes 38-22 Sharks, Brumbies 22-23 Highlanders.