The American Raptors made their first foray into Super Rugby Americas with a 45-10 loss to Selknam.
The Raptors, featuring several players with USA aspirations, a few experienced South Americans, and a group of crossover athletes, are still finding their way in what is a very high level of competition.
Selknam found themselves able to bunch up Raptors defenders and exploited one such moment of confusion for an early try.
Being a little slow to react on a free kick off a scrum led to another and a poor defense of an eightman pick led to a 19-3 halftime deficit. (The Raptors were working hard to compete at the sceum and that eightman pick exploited the fact that Raptors No. 8 Diego Magno was locked in trying to get the shove going rather than backing up flanker Ronan Murphy.Selknam's fourth try was the result of a series of snappy offloads in tight play, and a nicely-executed backline play off a scrum produced the fifth score.
