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Pumas deploy heavy artillery for Springboks opener
By Kim Ekin
Argentina head coach Mario Ledesma has named his team to face the Springboks in this Saturday’s Rugby Championship encounter at the Nelson Mandela Stadium.
The Los Pumas will be captained by hooker Julian Montoya with former skipper and loose forward Pablo Matera also in the starting XV.
Los Pumas face huge challenges ahead of the 11th season of the Rugby Championship, with its squad scattered around – mostly in Europe – and Ledesma only managing to get most of his players together on Monday in Port Elizabeth, the venue for the two Tests against the Springboks.
From there, they will travel to Auckland and Sydney. Fullback Emiliano Boffelli and loose head prop Facundo Gigena were unable to travel due to COVID-19 related issues and will join the team at a later date.
First-choice scrumhalf Tomás Cubelli was injured with his new club in France, Biarritz, and was operated on only a few days ago.
Consequently, Santiago Carreras will don the no.15 jersey against the Boks.
While scrumhalf Felipe Ezcurra will partner with veteran Nicolas Sanchez as this Saturday’s halfback pair.
LOS PUMAS: 15 Santiago Carreras, 14 Bautista Delguy, 13 Santiago Chocobares, 12 Jerónimo de la Fuente, 11 Matías Moroni, 10 Nicolás Sánchez, 9 Felipe Ezcurra, 8 Rodrigo Bruni, 7 Facundo Isa, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Marcos Kremer, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Francisco Gómez Kodela, 2 Julián Montoya (c), 1 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro
REPLACEMENTS: 16 Facundo Bosch, 17 Carlos Muzzio, 18 Santiago Medrano, 19 Tomás Lavanini, 20 Matías Alemanno, 21 Gonzalo Bertranou, 22 Domingo Miotti, 23 Sebastian Cancelliere
SPRINGBOKS:
15 Damian Willemse, 14 Sbu Nkosi, 13 Jesse Kriel, 12 Frans Steyn, 11 Aphelele Fassi, 10 Elton Jantjies (vice-captain), 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Kwagga Smith, 6 Siya Kolisi (captain), 5 Lood de Jager, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Wilco Louw, 2 Joseph Dweba, 1 Ox Nché
REPLACEMENTS: 16 Malcolm Marx, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Vincent Koch, 19 Marvin Orie, 20 Marco van Staden, 21 Dan du Preez, 22 Herschel Jantjies, 23 Morné Steyn
Date: Saturday, August 14
Venue: Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Gqeberha
Kick-off: 17.05 (12.05 ART; 15.05 GMT)
Referee: Andrew Brace (Ireland)
Assistant referees: Karl Dickson (England), AJ Jacobs (South Africa)
TMO: Tom Foley (Wales)
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Latest Comments
Disagree.
The challenge for the All Blacks now that they have 7 of 8 starting forwards locked in and all but one bench forward (only one loose forward and bench loosie to settle on) is to sort out the starting backline as only 9 Roigard, 12 J. Barrett, 11 Clarke and 15 Jordan had good to outstanding seasons in 2024. All the other backs were inconsistent or poor and question marks going into 2025.
Go to commentshe should not be playing 12. He should be playing 10 and team managers should stop playing players out of position to accommodate libbok.
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