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Argentina U20 name strong side for historic clash with Junior Wallabies
By Finn Morton
Coach Alvaro Galindo had to make some “difficult” selection decisions when picking the Argentina Pumitas team to take on tournament hosts Australia in a historic U20 clash on Thursday evening.
Sunshine Coast Stadium in the Australian state of Queensland will host the first-ever Rugby Championship from May 2 to 12. The best young rugby talent from Australia, New Zealand South Africa and Argentina will take the field.
Argentina Rugby recently named an exciting 31-man squad to travel Down Under for the event, with Los Pumitas looking to make history against the best U20s rugby players that the southern hemisphere has to offer.
Coach Galindo, along with assistants Galo Alvarez Quinones and Carlos Mohapp, has led the team through a productive few days in Australia ahead of their opening match at 7pm local time on Thursday.
“We took two days to adapt to the time change, sleep, travel and dehydration,” coach Galindo said in a statement. “Now we are very good.
“On Monday and Tuesday, we had two days of training in which we sought to find the team, il things and continue focusing on some details, both individual and collective.
“Tomorrow we will have a calmer pre-match training session so we an have all the energy put into Thursday for the debut.”
Diego Correa, Juan Manuel Vivas and Tomas Rapetti will pack down in the front-row, while locks Alvaro Garcia Iandolino and Elias Efrain complete the tight five combination.
Juan Penoucos, Santos Fernandez De Oliveria and Juan Pedro Bernasconi form a formidable loose forward trio who will have their work cut out for them against a tough Australian backrow.
Tomas Di Biase and Santino Di Lucca will steer the ship as the two halves, while Tomas Bocco and Palermo Bajo’s Faustino Sanchez Valarolo are the two midfielders for Argentina.
Valentin Soler Filoty, Franco Rossetto and Benjamin Elizalde are the outside backs and the final players to have been selected for the run-on side.
“The truth is that the choice of the 23 players was difficult, but it was done thinking about an 80-minute game, not one focused only on the 15 that start,” Galindo added.
“We will try to be able to maintain good intensity, achievement and balance throughout the match. It is important to have the 15 who start and the eight who enter later.”
Argentina Pumitas to take on Australia U20
- Diego Correa
- Juan Manuel Vivas
- Tomas Rapetti
- Alvaro Garcia Iandolino
- Elias Efrain (c)
- Juan Penoucos
- Santos Fernandez De Oliveira
- Juan Pedro Bernasconi
- Tomas Di Biase
- Santino Di Lucca
- Valentin Soler Filoty
- Tomas Bocco
- Faustino Sanchez Valarolo
- Franco Rossetto
- Benjamin Elizalde
Replacements
- Marcos Camerlinckx
- Gonzalo Gargallo Bazan
- Gael Galvan
- Luciano Asevedo
- Julian Rossi
- Genaro Podesta
- Mateo Rossati
- Timothy Silva
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Latest Comments
we don't often agree OJohn but in this case it is hard not too.
Go to commentsNeed is a strong word, they can simply do it by changing personal.
If they want to maximise their potential I think they need both an attack and defence coach, it's not the skills of a backs coach thats missing but the creativity of a Tony Brown, an attack coach. AB defence was better than attack but I still think a real pro is going to be needed to take it to the next level. I can see the current team adding little things to improve it by brain struggles to see a leap where the whole team is attacking rather than just DMac without a restructure.
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