Eagles take the title after draw with Argentina

AMERICAS CUP

THE US Eagles scored four tries in a 27-27 draw with Argentina XV last week to win the second Americas Rugby Championship.

First-half substitute David Tameilau dotted down twice in the tie as Argentina benefitted from two penalty-try calls and a man-advantage spell with the Eagles down to 13 men on the field.

Head coach John Mitchell's squad closed a 12-point deficit in the face of capped Argentinian international reserves to earn the draw and championship.

Argentina fly-half Domingo Miotti and US full-back Ben Cima exchanged early penalties.

Will Magie then grabbed his first international try for USA but Cima missed his touch-line conversion attempt to leave it 8-3 in the 32nd minute.

A driving maul then sliced through the Argentinian pack and David Tameilau extended the lead to 15-3.

Argentina drew penalty after penalty in the Eagles 22 before the break with wing Mike Te'o shown a yellow card and a penalty try to bring the halftime score to 15-10.

Tameilau followed him to the bin in the 44th minute for what was deemed to be foul play.

With tempers flaring in a highly-contested set of plays within 10m of the US try line, Argentina scrumhalf Sebastián Cancelliere was flashed yellow for foul play on flanker John Quill.

A series of unfinished scrums gave the match official reason to award Argenitna a penalty try and more penalty troubles allowed Miotti to extend Argentina's lead to 20-15.

Full-back Gabriel Ascárate scored to extend it further to 27-15 which kicked the Eagles into gear.

They finally broke through in the 74th minute with No. 8 Cam Dolan scoring. The touch-line conversion from Cima was just wide again, but the Eagles were already primed for the restart.

Tameilau grabbed his side’s fourth try at the death and Cima converted to earn the draw and the title.