Super Cup #2
In the second round of the Super Cup, the Lusitanos defeated again the Iberians. 13-20 was the final score.
It was in Valladolid, in the Pepe Rojo Stadium that the Castilla y Leon Iberians hosted the Lusitanos XV for the second round of the Rugby Europe SuperCup.
The best part: Lusitanos’ second half. The rugby that we got used to see and admire was back and it cause a lot of problems to the Iberians defence.
The not-so-good part: the first half of the match. The Lusitanos were completely dominated by the Spanish side and the 10-3 at the break was extremely flattering for the Portuguese team.
Man of the match: Antonio Xavier Cerejo. The Portuguese openside flanker (and a CDUL player), tirelessly stopped (almost) everything that came his way. In the second half, he had the clarity to transform a loose ball in the try that gave his team the game. A giant.
After last weekend’s defeat (34-19), the Iberians started the match willing to show that last weekend was behind them and had been nothing but an accident.
The first ten minutes of the match were very clumsy with a lot of loose balls and not a lot of criteria when passing was concerned. However, the Spanish side was on top and the Lusitanos couldn’t not break the gain line, mostly due to the rush defence that the Iberians executed almost perfectly.
One of the Iberians’ main offensive weapons was their driving maul that the Portuguese side couldn’t stop. After two close attempts, the third maul managed to cross the try line and the Iberians scored the first try of the match (18 mins).
The crowd at the Pepe Rojo Stadium had to wait almost 30 minutes for the first Lusitanos attempts to go forward in the pitch, through carried and kicks from Portela, Appleton, and Sousa Guedes. It was through the boot of the latter that the Portuguese side scored their first points of the match (10-3).
With the clock on red, the Iberians put a lot of pressure on the Lusitanos defence and managed another penalty, successfully scored by Katz. The score at half time was 13-3 for the home team.
After being completely dominated by the Iberians in the first half, the second half started with a completely different dynamic, with the Lusitanos scoring in the first two minutes: Jose Santos has a 40m break, offloading to Pedro Lucas with the Portuguese scrum-half successfully diving for the try.
Prompted by the try, the flashy and fluid rugby that the Portuguese team had displayed in the first match was back and at the 66-minute mark, after a rebound, Antonio Xavier Cerejo had the clarity to advance on the pitch due to an excellent work with his feet, successfully taking the ball over the try line. The score was 13-20, after a conversion from Nuno Sousa Guedes.
The last 10 minutes of the match saw the Iberians putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the Portuguese defence that, even though they were down to 14 man, stopped everything that was thrown at them.
The Lusitanos are on top of Pool West with 9 points in 2 matches. On the 23rd October, they go to Amsterdam to play Team Delta.
