The South African Western Stormers battled to a 32-25 Super Rugby victory on Saturday over the Argentine Jaguares reduced to 13 men for part of the second half.
Outstanding loose forward Pablo Matera and Matias Moroni were yellow carded within 1 minute just past the hour mark at Newlands Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa.
Stormers were awarded a penalty try soon after for a nine-point lead and the expectations were that the floodgates would open.
Photo: EPA
However, the Buenos Aires-based side responded with a brilliant try by Santiago Cordero which replacement Santiago Gonzalez Iglesias converted.
Seconds before the two sin-binned Argentines returned, SP Marais scored a try for the Cape Town outfit to complete the scoring.
“The Jaguares shocked us with their physicality,” said Stormers try scorer and man of the match E.W. Viljoen. “We were very happy to hear the final whistle sound. It was a really tough match for us.”
After a poor debut season, the Jaguares are looking more polished this year, despite lacking injured stars Martin Landajo and Juan Martin Hernandez.
Star Nicolas Sanchez returned to flyhalf and contributed eight points after missing the opening-round win over the Southern Kings in Port Elizabeth last weekend.
“The way the Jaguares forwards carried the ball was outstanding,” SuperSport TV analyst and former Springboks coach Nick Mallett said.
After receiving rave reviews for their South African derby win over the Northern Bulls last weekend, the Stormers looked much less impressive.
Viljoen, Jano Vermaak and Marais scored tries for the Stormers, who were also awarded a seven-point penalty try.
Jean-Luc du Plessis, a son of former Springbok star Carel, kicked two conversions and two penalties.
Santiago Cordero scored two tries and skipper Agustin Creevy one for the Jaguares, while Sanchez kicked a conversion and two penalties and Iglesias a conversion.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier