Raptors Grab Bonus Point in Home Finale Loss to Peñarol

The American Raptors finished up their 2024 home season with a 24-17 loss to Peñarol in Round 10 on Sunday afternoon.

Despite building up a 10-0 lead in the first half, the Raptors (2-7) were sluggish coming out of the halftime break and Peñarol (3-5) made them pay.

The match couldn’t have started much better for the Raptors. They jumped out to an early lead when fullback Rufus McLean wrangled in a Jacob Hidalgo kick for a try in the third minute of the match. 

Playing with a 7-0 lead, the Raptors made timely stops in their own zone to protect the shutout. Their hard work paid off early in the match, leading to three Ignacio Mieres penalty goals inside the first 30 minutes. Mieres drilled his third attempt to give the Raptors a 10-0 first-half lead.

Just as it looked as if the Raptors were going to take a 10-0 lead into the halftime break, Peñarol hooker Francisco García rode a maul in for their first try of the match to give the visitors some life. The Raptors took a 10-5 lead into the half.

Peñarol jumped all over the Raptors early in the second half. Number eight Carlos Deus got the scoring started with a pick-and-go try in the 50th minute to take their first lead of the match.

Just as it has the entire season, the penalties came back to bite the Raptors again in Round 10. Facundo Pomponio was handed a red card In the 51st minute, and Peñarol made the Raptors pay for it. 

The visitors rattled off two more tries in the next 10 minutes to take a commanding 24-10 lead with just under 20 minutes remaining in the match. That was just enough to put the match out of reach for the Raptors.

The Raptors had one last gasp of air in their lungs. Peñarol coughed up the ball as they were stringing together phases deep in Raptor territory to put the final nail in the coffin. Scrumhalf John LeFevre gathered the ball out wide and beat five Peñarol defenders before finding fly-half Ignacio Mieres in support on an offload to score the coast-to-coast try to sneak back into the match. 

Mieres nailed the conversion to cut the lead to seven points, giving the Raptors a chance to tie things up with a few minutes to play.

The Raptors wouldn’t get the final chance to tie things up. Peñarol fullback Ignacio Álvarez attempted a penalty goal at the final whistle that would’ve prevented the Raptors from securing a bonus-point loss, but he pushed the attempt wide.

Peñarol picked up five points in the table with the bonus point victory to keep within five points of Selknam for the fourth and final playoff spot. The Raptors now have 11 points in the table but are slowly losing sight of the final playoff spot after dropping four-straight matches.

After finishing up their six-match homestand with a 2-4 record, the Raptors will attempt to make one final push for the final playoff spot with three more matches in South America. Unfortunately for the Raptors, they will need some help.