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Argentina side to play All Blacks at Eden Park
By Ben Smith
Argentina head coach Felipe Contepomi has named his team as Los Pumas chase back-to-back wins over the All Blacks on New Zealand soil for the first time.
In a re-shuffle, last week's openside Marcos Kremer moves into the second row as Juan Martin Gonzalez switches from No 8 to openside. Joaquin Oviedo will pack down at No 8.
Hooker Julien Montoya returns to the side to start and captain the side, while Ignacio Ruiz returns to the bench and last week's inspirational performer Agustin Creevy drops out of the 23.
The starting backline for Los Pumas remains unchanged, however winger Bautista Delguy comes onto the bench in a 5-3 split after last week's 6-2.
Argentina team to take on the All Blacks:
1. GALLO , Thomas
2. MONTOYA, Julian
3. SORDONI, Lucio
4. KREMER , Marcos
5. RUBIOLO , Pedro
6. MATERA , Pablo
7. GONZALEZ, Juan Martin
8. OVIEDO, Joaquin
9. BERTRANOU , Gonzalo
10. CARRERAS, Santiago
11. CARRERAS, Matthew
12. CHOCOBARES, Santiago
13. CINTI, Lucio
14. MORONI, Matthias
15. MALLÍA, Juan Cruz
Reserves
16. RUIZ, Ignacio
17. VIVAS, Mayco
18. SCLAVI , Joel
19. MOLINA, Franco
20. LAVANINI , Tomás
21. BAZAN VELEZ , Lautaro
22. ALBORNOZ , Thomas
23. DELGUY, Bautista
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Latest Comments
Well Nick, you're on the money again.
As a player of league and union and follower and occasional coach at basic levels I can say it is if anything worse.
My take is that somehow or other once we had gone pro, and become a top 2 or 3 team (early naughties) the hubris took over.
At high levels (NSW and Sydney RU in my experience), the money that had previously trickled to things like coach the coaches and special days was redirected to "elite" players and (worst of all) previously unpaid board directors.
We were left with "I want to be a Wallaby" stickers!
There was an actual belief that we had become good because of some inate natural skill we had.
No acknowledgement of coaches or hard work or any activity at all outside of Private Schools.
The ant-league sentiment was palpable, and that alone drove kids playing in my son's West Habour Pirates team away from the game. They were told that they couldn't play League on Sundays and Union on Saturdays by the SRU.
Coaches (including assistant coaches like me) were told to force kids to go to Waratah games after their game. Coach the coaches was replaced by a SRU chap talking over us at training and telling the boys not to tackle low like "mungos", throw the lightest kid up in lineouts, not the tallest. There were many ridiculous things that the kids just laughed at.
The inability to pick out a good player or teach basic skills to anyone went with handing coaching responsibility at representative levels to chaps based on the school they went to, irrespective of whether they had ever played or ever coached.
The money with professionalism had the completely opposite effect to what it should have had when it came to trivial things like skills, coaching and selection.
Rave over...
Go to commentsBut Izack didn't stick around.
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