Brazil win S American Forum 7s
Brazil – newly promoted back to the World Series - extended their 12-year undefeated record in South America by winning a special sevens even organised to run alongside the South American Women’s Rugby Forum in Asunción, Paraguay, this weekend.
Published by John Birch, April 28th, 2019
3 minute read
This was not a continental championship, so it was an opportunity for the teams taking part to experiment a little, but the tournament still carried some prestige with Sudamerican Rugby stating that they planned to run more such events to allow the continent’s teams to develop more and offer more of a challenge to teams from the rest of the world.
The nine teams were drawn in three pools at the start, with the pool winners and best runner-up proceeding to a “Gold Pool”, the winners of that then playing off in a final. The remaining five teams played in a “Challenge Pool” to decide 5th-9thplace.
With Colombia absent the tournament was, unsurprisingly, dominated by Brazil and Argentina, each only conceding a single score to any of the other seven teams in the competition over the whole weekend.
However, there were some high points for some of the other teams. Costa Rica recorded their first win against South American opposition when they beat Venezuela in their final match, and Peru beat Chile for only the second time, though the Chileans won the other two of three games they played to finish third overall. Home team Paraguay also finished as Challenge winners, and fifth overall.
But it was Brazil who ended champions, topping Pool A and the Gold Pool with a strong 22-5 win over Argentina, and repeated that with a 22-7 win in the final. Brazil’s unbeaten run in South American now stretches to 12 years and 88 games.
Results
Pool A:Costa Rica 0-27 Uruguay; Brazil 39-0 Costa Rica; Brazil 36-5 UruguayPool B:Paraguay 32-5 Venezuela; Argentina 46-0 Venezuela; Argentina 29-0 ParaguayPool C:Chile 39-0 Guatemala; Peru 29-7 Guatemala; Peru 5-10 Chile
Challenge pool:Paraguay 36-5 Costa Rica; Guatemala 5-29 Uruguay; Guatemala 17-17 Costa Rica; Venezuela 5-27 Paraguay; Uruguay 22-0 Venezuela; Paraguay 51-0 Guatemala; Venezuela 32-5 Guatemala; Uruguay 22-5 Costa Rica; Paraguay 24-5 Uruguay; Venezuela 5-17 Costa Rica
Gold pool:Brazil 15-0 Peru; Argentina 20-0 Chile; Brazil 38-0 Chile; Argentina 27-5 Peru; Brazil 22-5 Argentina; Peru 22-0 Chile
3rdplace:Peru 7-14 Chile
Final:Brazil 22-7 Argentina