Estadísticas BAC - LOMAS

El próximo sábado recibiremos en Virrey del Pino a nuestros amigos de Lomas Athletic Club y como es costumbre les propongo compartir una serie de datos estadísticos de los partidos disputados entre ambos clubes.

Les recuerdo que las estadísticas comprenden los partidos disputados a partir del año 1952 y que solamente contemplan los datos referidos a los jugadores de Belgrano.

Si bien se trata de dos de los clubes fundadores de la Unión Argentina de Rugby, no existen muchos partidos oficiales en Primera División entre ambos equipos desde 1952 a la fecha, solamente son 19 los encuentros jugados en ese período, los cuales se disputaron entre los años 1996 y 2010.

La vinculación entre Lomas y Belgrano es entrañable y se remonta a fines del siglo XIX dado que ambos clubes participaron de manera conjunta en la fundación de varias asociaciones deportivas. Al mismo tiempo la rivalidad deportiva no solamente existe en el rugby sino también en Bowls, Cricket, Hockey y Tenis.

Previamente a conocer los fríos números de las estadísticas, vamos a compartir y conocer sobre la historia de nuestro rival, y para ello he acudido a la página web de Lomas para sacar la información, y como no podía ser de otra manera la transcribiré en su idioma de origen, el inglés.

“The club was founded in March, 1891, by pupils and former pupils of the Lomas Academy, but changed its name to the present one two years later. The founding committee were Thomas Dodds -its president for the first three years - James Gibson, John Cowes, R. I. Goodfellow, T. M. Lees and W. W. Hayward and a few of of these sumarnes are still prorninent at the club today.

The sports played at the club, are rugby, field hockey, golf, tennis, cricket and bowls and Lomas AC were among the founding members of the associations of all these sports with the slight exception of field hockey which the men joined two years after the first championship was played in 1908 and the women played in the first women's championship in 1924 under the name of Diamonds. But when the club was founded in 1891, cricket, rugby and soccer were the sports practiced and it is not generally realized that Lomas AC had the country's first great soccer team.

In 1893, the Association Argentine Football League was formed to organize the first official championship that year with six teams, mostly made up of members from the British Comminity with Lomas AC winning the first title followed by five more in a row. During that time -until 1898 -they were practically uIibeatable as they won 46 of their 60 matches; drawing 11 and losing only three during those six years, according to officia1 records (although the book shows a 47-9-4 record).

Later rugby became the most popular sport at the club and this gradually weakened the soccer team. While they continued playing in the championship for another 11 years, they frequent1y finished in low positions as the opposition was a1so getting stronger with more Argentines taking up soccer. After finishing bottom of the 10-team league in 1909   with a 1-6-11 record, their last appearance was in the first round of the Copa Competencia knock-out in which Estudiantes (Buenos Aires) beat them by 18-0 ...a sad end to great team tradition.

Lomas won the first rugby championship in 1899, their only title so far but after struggling in lower divisions for a number of years, they are now a prominent first division team with  Pablo Gomez Cora representing Argentina at highest level and his brother Santiago who is the international all time sevens try scorer.

They have been prominet in cricket right from the association's formation in 1913, although as mentioned, they played the game long before that and 13 of its members have represented Argentina.

The club organized the first womens open championship in the country in 1895 at their course in Links while leading Argentine golfer Jose Jurado was the pro there and represented the club, winning the Argentine Open seven times between 1920 and 1931.

Lomas has always been prominent among the five c1ubs playing bowls, all in Buenos Aires, and six of its men and women players have played in world championships.

But it is field hockey currently bringing the club the most success. While having teams in both the men's and women's Metropolitan first divisions, it is the women who are current champions and who, after taking their first title in 1938, have won other 16 since 1977 which left with nelghbours Qullmes AC as leading title  winners.

Hockey is undoubtedly the most important sport. Last year the club had 32 teams in diferent divisions with over 500 players. Nineteen of its women players have played for the national team, goalkeeper Mariela Antonyska and Alejandra Gulla becoming world champions and Olympic medal winners.

An interesting note is that F. H. Cheva1lier-Boutell, its third president, held the post for 24 years (1894-1918) and on the whole, there have been few changes. Robin Stuart held the position for 12 years, John C. Rodman for 20 and Alberto Echeverria, the first criollo, in 1974, for 10. Patrick Campbe1l is the current president. This indicates a certain settled atmosphere”

Volviendo ahora a los enfrentamientos entre Belgrano y Lomas en Primera División entre 1996 a la fecha, debemos decir que en ese período se disputaron19 encuentros con 11 victorias para Belgrano, 1 empate y 7 victorias para Lomas, utilizando el BAC 102 jugadores y convirtiendo el Marrón 56 tries, 38 conversiones, 33 penales y 2 drops, dando un total de 461 tantos a favor y sufriendo 402 en contra, siendo el resultado promedio a favor de Belgrano por 24 a 21.

Jugando Belgrano en calidad de local se disputaron 8 encuentros con 6 victorias del BAC, 1 empate y 1 sola victoria para Lomas, convirtiendo Belgrano 175 tantos y recibiendo 130.

Los Tryman históricos de Belgrano son Alejandro Galli, Agustín Corrieri, Ignacio Diaz y Diego Gradín con 3 tries cada uno; el Goleador histórico es Sebastián Fossati con 50 tantos producto de 10 conversiones y 10 penales en 9 partidos disputados; el máximo goleador en un partido es Sebastián Fossati con 20 tantos (6 penales y 1 conversión) y ello fue en el partido jugado entre ambos clubes el 19/7/03 cuando vencimos de visitantes por 30 a 12; el Oso Alejandro Galli con 12 partidos disputados es el jugador con mayor número de presencias en este duelo por parte de Belgrano, mientras que Marcelo Bosch con 11 conversiones en 7 partidos es quien lidera este rubro por parte del BAC. 

La mayor cantidad de tries que logró convertirle Belgrano a Lomas en un partido fue el 23/9/06 cuando los vencimos en Longchamps por 41 a 13, producto de 2 tries obtenidos por Federico Henry y uno de Ignacio Diaz, Alejandro Galli, Alejandro Spataro y Frankie Gomez Kodela respectivamente. Una particularidad en este duelo es que en 6 oportunidades Belgrano logró apoyarle a Lomas 4 tries en un partido, mientras que una sola vez logró marcarle 5 tries y ello fue en la victoria de local por 30 a 20 el 4/8/07.  Finalmente podemos decir que Pablo Ferguson es el único jugador de Belgrano que logró anotarle puntos a Lomas de todas las formas posibles (2 tries, 3 conversiones, 1 penal y 1 drop).

La mejor racha de victorias de Belgrano se produjo a partir del año 2006 hasta la fecha logrando 6 victorias consecutivas, mientras que la mejor racha positiva de Lomas sobre el BAC es de sólo 2 victorias consecutivas logradas en dos oportunidades entre los años 1996/1998 y 2004/2005, en todos los casos Lomas jugó de local.

Hemos dicho que Lomas solamente logró un empate y una victoria en Virrey del Pino ocurriendo ello en  1998 y 2000 respectivamente, mientras que los siguientes y últimos 6 partidos jugados en Pino fueron victorias de Belgrano (2002/2009). Las tres últimas victorias del BAC de local fueron 30 a 20 (20/5/07), 17 a 8 (15/8/08), 28 a 20 (23/8/09) y 23 a 21 (17/10/10).

Clikeando aquí accederán a la estadística completa desde el año 1952 entre Belgrano y Lomas.

Fernando Vilar Rousseaux