The USA Falcons lost to Uruguay XV 50-27 Thursday night on the first leg of their two-game series in South America.
The Americans, despite looking very much at times like a team brought together from various locations, had their moments and were certainly dangerous in the open field. A very nice team try helped long by a big charge from Jason Damm at No. 8 and some slick passing from the centers set up Pita Vi for a try that staked the Falcons to an early lead.
Line Latu converted and later added a penalty goal.
But Uruguay slowly worked their way into the game, tying the score at 10-10 after a high ball was lost in the lights by Vi. It was 10-10 with the first half winding down when Uruguay's forwards surged over to make it 17-10.
Still the USA responded and a nice chip ahead from Dominic Iacovino was gathered by Vi, who showed an excellent turn of speed and a sidestep to beat two tacklers and score from long range. Latu converted and it was 17-17 at 45 minutes. But at the restart prop Chris Baumann was red-carded for taking the man out off the ball. Baumann clearly saw the center Baltazar Amaya coming and coming his way and stepped into him. Amaya went down and didn't get up for some time. He was replaced.
But Baumann could not be replaced and the lack of a forward hurt quite badly. After that Uruguay XV went for the maul or scrum as often as possible. They took a lineout and mauled over right from the Baumann penalty. And while Latu kicked a penalty right after, soon the Uruguay team was again setting up a lineout, and then a maul, and scoring a try. The next maul was collapsed, and lock Mike Matarazzo got a yellow card, putting the Americans down two players. It was only a matter of time and Uruguay once again maul over a try.
In the space of 13 minutes the score had gone from 17-17 to 38-20.
The pressure started to tell and Uruguay XV scored another at 67 minutes to make it 43-20. The USA Falcons got one back, one again showing good work in open field and earning a penalty, from which the Uruguayans collapsed the maul and were charged with a penalty try.
With time up, however, Uruguay XV scored one more to finish it off.
Overall, especially late in the game, the Falcons looked very disorganized on defense. However, they battled hard, with the back row of Ronan Murphy, Devin Short, and Damm especially active. Vi was certainly exciting to watch and the tight five hung in there against difficult odds. Worrying for this group was their lineout, which operated on a less than 50% success rate.
Had they not played most of the second half down a man they might well have played their hosts a lot closer.
