USA Rugby South ended Day 1 of the Rugby Americas North U19 Men's 15s competition 2-0 and are in good position to go deep in the competition.
The Panthers beat a tough Jamaican side 21-7 before shutting out Trinidad & Tobago 31-0.
Jamaica fielded a tough team made up partly of players who had been training in the UK—England especially has a large population of young people whose parents or grandparents are Jamaican.
With that, Jamaica's pace, the wind, and perhaps a bit of nerves, it took a long time for the USA South Panthers to cross the tryline.
Well, that's not entirely true, as the Panthers did cross the tryline early, but were held up by a tenacious Jamaican side. With the ball in hand Jamaica looked very dangerous, but USA South was able to bring the physicality and force turnovers. Still, the wind pulled some wide passes offline and both teams figured out soon enough that their passes had to be more direct.
The Panthers struggled in executing in their lineouts, but once they got one moving, they put the Jamaicans under pressure. That pressure led to a penalty in the ruck and flyhalf Quinn Vorster put the kick over for a 3-0 lead. Back came the Panthers, but while they held a lot of possession, their backs were somewhat static and it took a while to get back into scoring position. Another penalty did get called and Vorster was good on that kick just as the half ended.
In the second half the Panthers were back and played a bit more dynamically. A high tackle led to a yellow card against Jamaica and Vorster put over a kick again to make it 9-0. And then finally, midway through the second half, they scored a try. A penalty led to, this time, a kick to touch. The lineout was taken nicely by lock Chris Jensvold and the forwards kept working on it, before reserve front-rower Gozi Mosi crashed over.
Vorster put the conversion over and now it was a three-score game at 16-0.
The South could have built on that but slight missed connections and mistakes undercut them. Center Jason Trevino was outstanding and every time he touched the ball made things better for his team.
A massive run from Mosi almost got him to the line, and the South recycled quickly and sent it wide to back Charlie Joe Rosemeyer who scored to make it 21-0 and got a bloody nose for his pains.
With time up, Jamaica managed to get a nicely-taken try by No. 8 Khalil Brown, converted by Mason Campbell.
That was it. The Panthers were good at times, and won thanks to the power of their pack, but they looked like what they were, a team that had just come together.
