{"id":108982,"date":"2025-09-02T11:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108982\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T11:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T11:28:14","slug":"would-be-rugby-world-cup-side-push-uruguay-in-qualifier-first-leg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/108982\/","title":{"rendered":"Would-be Rugby World Cup side push Uruguay in qualifier first-leg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Estadio Municipal de la Pintana in Chile<\/a> hosted the first leg of the Sudam\u00e9rica Rugby World Cup<\/a> qualifier, a tense affair between Chile and Uruguay, with the Teros emerging 28-16 winners.<\/p>\n

Pablo Lemoine\u2019s side were able to call on Racing 92\u2019s Diego Escobar<\/a> and US Agen\u2019s Javier Eissmann<\/a>, while Rodolfo Ambrosio\u2019s Uruguay<\/a> featured Castres<\/a> scrum-half Santiago Arata<\/a> and Oyonnax<\/a> lock Manuel Leindekar.<\/p>\n

The visitors opened the scoring as centre Felipe P\u00e9rez crashed over from close range to give his team an early lead.<\/p>\n

In the 18th minute, Santiago Videla<\/a> landed Chile\u2019s first points from the tee, but their fightback was short-lived when back row Raimundo Mart\u00ednez was sent to the sin bin. Playing against 14 men, Uruguay took control and added a second try through Germ\u00e1n Kessler, with Felipe Etcheverry<\/a> converting.<\/p>\n

Just before the break, Chile enjoyed their best spell of the game, scoring ten points in the final quarter of the first half. Mat\u00edas Garafulic powered through Uruguay\u2019s defence to score, with Videla adding the extras, having already landed a penalty minutes earlier.<\/p>\n

Although Chile briefly led after the restart, the Teros soon reasserted themselves and turned pressure into points, crossing for two more tries.<\/p>\n

Arata guided a maul over the line, the scrum-half grounding for his side\u2019s third try. Replacement outside back Ignacio \u00c1lvarez then found space out wide to dodge a couple of tackles and push the lead to 28-16 with twenty minutes remaining.<\/p>\n

The C\u00f3ndores worked hard to rally, but their long-time rivals held firm, denying Lemoine\u2019s men any further points, even when reduced to 13 players in the closing stages.<\/p>\n

Chile now head to Montevideo for the return leg at Estadio Charr\u00faa on September 6. The aggregate winner will qualify for the 2027 Rugby World Cup, with the loser facing the fourth-placed Pacific Nations team for a final chance to reach finals in Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Estadio Municipal de la Pintana in Chile hosted the first leg of the Sudam\u00e9rica Rugby World Cup…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-108982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}