Rugby Championship: Breaking Down Argentina’s Strengths and Weaknesses

By
at Internationaled.org

Published: August 9, 2013

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Argentina have yet to win a game in the Rugby Championship, but after naming a full-strength squad for their second season in the competition they will be confident of fixing that statistic against the Southern Hemisphere’s big boys.

In all but one of their six matches last year—the 54-15 home defeat by the All Blacks—the Pumas were competitive. They earned a draw with South Africa on their home debut in the tournament, while a total of only 10 points separated the sides in their two losses to Australia.

The Pumas had waited a long time for their invitation to join what used to be the Tri-Nations, and they showed that they belonged with a number of typically obdurate performances.

Argentina’s challenge this year is to make further progress and prove that their efforts and relative success last year was not achieved on passion alone. Second-season syndrome needs to be avoided, and it appears they are doing everything in their power to guarantee the trend is upwards.



As well as securing the services of their leading European-based players, the Pumas have contracted World Cup-winning New Zealand coach Graham Henry on a consultancy basis.

Henry has been advising coach Santiago Phelan during the Pumas training camp at The High Performance Centre in Florida and will be retained for the duration of the tournament.

According to Reuters, veteran centre Felipe Contepomi certainly feels the Pumas' preparation has gone well.

This is a good squad that has prepared hard. We are where we want to be. There are things to improve but we are in a strong way.

Starting with their opening clash against South Africa in Johannesburg on August 17, the Pumas will want to banish memories of two heavy summer defeats against England.

Those games featured Argentina’s second-string squad as Phelan chose to rest his leading players, and only four ...
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Rugby Union

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