Jaguares hammer bamboozled Bulls

The Jaguares continued their winning run, thrashing the Bulls 54-24 at Estadio Jose Amalfitani, Buenos Aires.

The Jaguares ran in seven tries, routing the three-times champions, who could not stop the South American juggernaut.

It is the Jaguares’ fifth win on the bounce after going undefeated on their historic Australasian tour.

This is the Bulls tenth loss outside South Africa and their second to the Jaguares.

Bautista Delguand and grabbed a brace Nicolas Sanchez was superb, both with the ball in hand and from the tee.

The Jaguares took a 10-point halftime lead after two tries by Sanchez and Delguy.

Handre Pollard kept the visitors in touching distance with his boot after Warrick Gelant’s 12th-minute score.

The Argentinians raced away with the match after the break, scoring 34 points in the process as the youthful Bulls capitulated.

Jeronimo De La Fuente’s run started the attack. The Jaguares recycled quickly before Sanchez ghosted through a huge gap to open the scoring.

Warrick Gelant crossed after Manie Libbok set up space for the fullback to run in untouched.

Sanchez then kicked two penalties to make it 13-7.

Handre Pollard reduced the deficit to three before the Jaguares extended their lead.

Bautista Delguy beat Adriaan Strauss and Ivan van Zyl with a side-step to score after the hooter.

The second-half onslaught by the Argentinians was immense.

Another Sanchez penalty stretched the lead to 13 before Emiliano Boffelli, playing fullback, set up the next score.

Boffelli broke into the Bulls 22 from an angled run. The Jaguares recycled quickly before Marcos Kremer spun out of a tackle to score.

The floodgates soon opened.

Delguy crossed the whitewash for his second and Sanchez’s conversion made it 37-10: game over.

It did not take long for the next try.

De La Fuente made the break, played Sanchez in support, who offloaded a sneaky inside ball to Matias Orlando for the Jaguares’ fifth five-pointer.

The Bulls were playing for pride.

Their coach, John Mitchell, had already started withdrawing his starters and best players to save them for future battles.

It did not stop the South Africans from attempting an unlikely comeback.

After a long period of possession, the Bulls used their driving maul to get their second score of the evening when Nick de Jager flopped over the try-line.

Sebastian Cancelliere was next on the scoresheet.

De La Fuente’s passed and run set up his side’s sixth try of the night.

The forwards and backs combined with some wonderful offloading, conjuring images of the great French sides, before putting the winger away.

Juan Cruz Mallia was sent to the bin, but it was inconsequential.

Andre Warner latched onto a superb cross-kick to give the Bulls some respectability which was cancelled out on the hooter.

Boffelli was over after some wonderful offloading by Sanchez and Cancelliere to bring up the half-century and a famous victory for the home team.

It’s back to the drawing board for the lacklustre Bulls.

Final score: Jaguares 54 (20) Bulls 24 (10)

Scorers

Jaguares
Tries – Sanchez, Delguy (2), Kremer, Orlando, Cancelliere, Boffelli
Pen – Sanchez (3)
Con – Sanchez (5)
Drop –
Cards – Mallia (Yellow, 77′)

Bulls
Tries – Gelant, De Jager, Warner
Pen – Pollard
Con – Pollard (2), Libbok
Drop –
Cards –

Match Officials
Referee: Federico Anselmi
Assistant Ref 1: Paul Williams
Assistant Ref 2: Pablo Deluca
TMO: Santiago Borsani

Teams

Jaguares

15 Emiliano Boffelli, 14 Bautista Delguy, 13 Matias Orlando, 12 Jeronimo De La Fuente, 11 Sebastian Cancelliere, 10 Nicolas Sanchez, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Javier Ortega Desio, 7 Marcos Kremer, 6 Tomas Lezana, 5 Tomas Lavanini, 4 Guido Petti Pagadizaval, 3 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, 2 Agustin Creevy, 1 Santiago Garcia Botta

Replacements: 16 Julian Montoya, 17 Javier Manuel Diaz, 18 Santiago Medrano, 19 Matias Alemanno, 20 Leonardo Senatore, 21 Martin Landajo, 22 Bautista Ezcurra, 23 Juan Cruz Mallia.

Bulls

15 Warrick Gelant, 14 Travis Ismaiel, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Handre Pollard (captain), 11 John-Ben Kotze, 10 Manie Libbok, 9 Ivan van Zyl, 8 Marco van Staden, 7 Thembelani Bholi, 6 Roelof Smit, 5 Rudolph Snyman, 4 Jason Jenkins, 3 Conraad van Vuuren, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Trevor Nyakane.

Replacements: 16 Jaco Visagie, 17 Nqobisizwe Mxoli, 18 Frans van Wyk, 19 Hendre Stassen, 20 Nicholas de Jager, 21 Andre Warner, 22 John Jackson, 23 Divan Rossouw.