The alarming slide of Argentina - why has it gone so wrong
Head coach Daniel Hourcade is on his way out after Saturday’s match with Scotland. With the Rugby Championship just months away and a World Cup on the horizon Argentina are in a mess. Just how has it gone so wrong for the 2015 World Cup semi-finalists.
At the 2007 World Cup the rugby public sat up and took notice as Argentina shocked hosts and Six Nations champions France 17-12 in the tournament opener and beat highly-fancied Ireland 30-15, to finish top of their pool. Their team featured a traditionally robust pack and a few backs to savour including the likes of Felipe Contepomi and the king of drop goals Juan Martin Hernandez. It was a side which went on to claim third place at the tournament.
The goal at the time was admission to the Six Nations, a tournament which would suit the Argentine game, coupled with the fact that most of their players played in the Northern Hemisphere, it was the perfect match. A few weeks after the World Cup had finished, in November 2007, they formally applied to join the Six Nations. By the end of that same month the International Rugby Board (now World Rugby) extinguished that hope with a statement: “’The forum agreed that the Pumas’ future lies in the southern hemisphere. In the short term there are major hurdles to the integration of Argentina into the southern playing structure. However, the Argentinian Rugby Union (UAR) have made a commitment to have their players contracted to the union and for the majority of their players to be based in Argentina by 2012”.
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After years of chasing the Six Nations dream, a complete change of tack was needed. Trying to entice home players who were on lucrative contracts wasn’t going to be easy or happen overnight. Their cause wasn’t helped by SANZAR, who in April 2010 agreed a five-year deal for Super Rugby from 2011 to 2015. It meant that the earliest an Argentine club side could enter the competition would be 2016. So with no domestic league of note to bring back players to in the interim, they were left in no-man’s land by the body which could and should have done more. SANZAR hadn’t completely cut Argentina adrift, the Tri-Nations was expanded to the Rugby Championship, but it was not a consolidated plan by SANZAR to integrate, both club and country.
So with players still based in the Northern Hemisphere Argentina trudged on regardless, admission to the Rugby Championship came in 2012. It was the beginning of the end of traditional Argentine rugby, the decision to adjust their game to the Southern Hemisphere style was made. In came Daniel Hourcade in 2013 to implement this. By the 2015 World Cup all seemed to be rosy, I witnessed first-hand the new brand of rugby, as Los Pumas dismantled Ireland in the quarter-finals at the Millennium Stadium, winning 43-20. They ran out of steam against Australia in the semi-finals, but they could go home pleased with their efforts, but it’s been downhill, and fast, since.
In the last two Rugby Championship’s Argentina have won just one match, in 2016 they beat South Africa 26-24 and slumped to five defeats, in 2017 it was a whitewash, six losses. They trudged up to Europe for the November internationals and I asked Hourcade whether Argentina had the toughest schedule of any other international side.
“That’s probably one of the biggest problems we have. Last season we travelled 186,000km so probably four times around the world. We’re used to that and it is our reality. We want the competition to play week-by-week and that is what we want and we are really happy about that. We have only just started, two seasons, and we only have 34 professional players,” he said.
“Our problem is not the amount of players we have, it’s the competition we have. We only have one tournament with one team so few players can develop at the top level. We would be better to be in the northern hemisphere but we are not allowed be there.”
“We need three or four teams [laughs].”
But it remains just a single team and it’s unlikely to change anytime soon, particularly with Super Rugby culling sides of late, from South Africa and Australia. Despite Argentina being solely reliant on one team to provide them with their players, there were signs of encouragement this season. The Jaguares, under new head coach Mario Ledesma, are a respectable seventh in the Super Rugby table with eight wins and five defeats from their thirteen matches so far and are currently on a six-match unbeaten run.
But ultimately when you are relying on a mid-table Super Rugby team to form the basis of your international side, it will have repercussions, it’s a step up and it’s a different style of play, particularly playing against Northern Hemisphere sides. Despite the Jaguares recent form in Super Rugby the national team have had a chastening June, beaten 2-0 at home by an under-strength Wales, their first series loss to the Welsh since 1999. The performance in 30-12 second Test reverse was so insipid that Hourcade fell on his sword.
“We (Hourcade and his assistants) think that the message is no longer getting through to the team, we’ve reached the end of a cycle. We assume the responsibility of making this decision, having already mentioned the possibility… before the June Tests”, the 60-year-old said.
Hourcade’s last game will come on Saturday against Scotland, once again his entire 23-man squad are Jaguares players.
So what can change, not much really and that is the concerning part. The amount of travel their players face both through Super Rugby and internationally cannot be altered. The one factor the UAR can modify is their selection policy, currently only South Hemisphere based players are allowed to play for the national team. It is a catastrophic waste to see the likes of Toulon’s Facundo Isa and Racing 92’s Juan Imhoff not being eligible for selection.
The recently-elected UAR President Marcelo Rodriguez is certainly looking at the issue, “It is one of the measures that I will promote in my administration. It’s something that will then have to be discussed and approved through the Council, but I firmly believe that the Pumas have to play the best.”
Since reaching the 2015 World Cup semi’s Argentina have lost 21 of their last 27 games. 2017 saw jut two wins and 10 defeats. 2018 is not looking at all promising either, another Rugby Championship whitewash could be on the cards, with improvements from South Africa and Australia visible in June. Los Pumas been thrown into a tough pool at the 2019 World Cup too, alongside England, France, USA and Tonga. It’s hard to be upbeat if you’re an Argentina supporter.
Comments on RugbyPass
Great story. Rugby needs new investment in teams like Brussels another pro league in Europe would be great.
1 Go to commentsAlso, looking at the data from last year, it seemed like by far the two biggest predictors of success were (1) kicking more than your opponents, and (2) having a higher rate of line-out wins than your opponents. I haven’t gone through the stats this year with a fine tooth comb, but the increase in kicks per game and the increase in tries from lineouts would suggest that these two metrics are only getting more important. England’s move away from a kick-heavy game to win against Ireland was seen by some as evidence that running rugby is on the rise. Alternatively it could be taken as evidence that if one team kicks more, and the other team wins more lineouts (as England did) a match is bound to be close to a draw.
2 Go to commentsI have been finding it odd that points per 22 entry has become such a talked about stat, given that your points per entry can be driven down by having more entries. These data would seem to confirm that it isn’t a useful metric, or at any rate is less useful than total entries.
2 Go to commentsI think the last two games England have played is some of their best rugby they have played under Borthwick. There has been a lot more attacking instinct and as a reward have created some well worked tries. Ollie Lawrence is a good foil at 12 as he offers the hard direct lines whilst the rest of the backs can play open. As much as it pains me to say but I do hope England keep playing this way. On a side note my favourite try of the weekend was Lorenzo Pani’s for the nice loop play that put him away and his finish was excellent. Thanks as always Nick.
39 Go to commentsMost exciting player on the planet right now, worth the price of a ticket.
1 Go to commentsBen Smith and Ireland live rent free in Safa’s heads. Their comments only triggers because its true. If the Boks had dismantled a 14 man AB’s, then there would be more respect. But they didnt, in fact quite the opposite, the 14 man NZ were clearly better. And the Bok have always been ordinary between RWC’s, thats why their supporters are now ‘only RWC’s matter’. They know thats BS. Its BS to both AB’s and Bok’s due to their history. But now its all the Safas have. Now we’ll hear excuses when they lose “oh we didnt have all our players available, the ABs/France/Eng/Irel were at full strength”, forgetting for a minute that its because of their own dumb policy. Oh well, makes a change from blaming ‘cheating refs’.
23 Go to commentsNo Nick, they did not, in fact, justify any ‘probables’ label. At no time did they seriously compete for the championship. Ireland led from start to finish and in the end, as a result of glaring referee errors, were never under serious pressure to lose their crown.
39 Go to commentsMoney for him, and his family, has been the sole motivator since he signed for Queensland aged 17. Why else sign for Melbourne. Tupou is poorly advised. If he’d stayed and developed in NZ he would have had a long Test career. If Leinster offer him a few more coins than he’s currently earning, he’s goneburger.
4 Go to commentsFinn. No one would say Ford had played well up until the last game. One standout performance in 5 is hardly in form . It should be a given that a 10 will control play . Not in Fords case be praised for suddenly doing so. Where was he against Scotland ,Italy. The pundits were saying how far away from play he was standing and one even said that the Ireland game was his last chance saloon to perform . Not exactly top form catching anyones eye. If he can play like this game after game then great. Keep him in . But after 90 odd caps we all know he just doesnt keep it going . By all means keep him there but the issue is that Borthwick will persist even when he plays poorly. Which is more often than not. Thats why i am concerned that Smith ,despite fab form , cannot get a game at his preferred spot. Can you imagine Ford at full back .
5 Go to commentsI do not really get why put Ollivon at 6 when he’s a 7, while Cros was the best Frenchman of the tournament, playing at…6. His only game replacing Aldritt at 8 doesn’t change much in terms of his impact. Lamaro was also outstanding in that brilliant Italian side, probably better than Reffell. So putting 2 Welsh players from the wooden spoon holders, and none of the 4th nation (Scotland) is also strange. Is it about showing that in this harsh transition Wales is, there were some standouts…?
6 Go to commentsThe events at this year’s six nations should undermine many of the arguments made against promotion and relegation between the six nations and the REC. If Italy had been allowed to yo-yo between divisions it conceivably could have really hurt their development, but if Italy, Wales, and Scotland are all at risk of relegation, with none of them being relegated more often than once every 3 or 4 years, you’d have to back all of them to muddle on through it, especially when you factor in the likelihood they’ll still be guaranteed world league matches against tier 1 opponents. Another way of looking at italys resurgence would be to say that the development model of adding an extra team to the six nations has worked, and now must be done again. Georgia could join to make it a 7 team round robin, and if and when Georgia demonstrate an ability to consistently win games, Portugal can also be added to make it an 8 team 2 conference competition. Frankly at this point I think it falls to world rugby to demand that the 6N act in the interests of the game. If the 6N won’t commit to expansion then the 6N teams should be handicapped in world cup draws (i.e. world cup seedings would not be based on their ranking points, but on their ranking points minus a 5 point penalty).
6 Go to commentsSteve Borthwick deserves credit for releasing the shackles on his England side and letting them play in a manner that somewhat resembles the top sides in the Gallagher Premiership. Will they revert to type in New Zealand in July.?
39 Go to commentsJames Lowe wouldn't get in any other 6N team. He's a great example of Farrell’s brilliance, and the Irish system. He is slow. His footwork is poor. But he fits perfectly in that Irish system, and has a superb impact. But put him in another team, and he'll look bang average.
6 Go to commentsCrusaders reached their heights through recruitment of North Island players, often leaving those NI teams bereft of key players. Example: Scott Barrett and Sam Whitelock robbed the Canes of their lineout and AB locks. For years the Canes have struggled at lock. This rabid recruitment was iniated by rule changes by a Crusader dominated NZR Head Office. Now this aggressive recruitment has back-fired, going after young inside back Hamilton Boys stars. They now have 4 Chiefs region 10s and not one with the requisite experience at Super level. Problems of their own making!
2 Go to commentsOver rated for a long time…exposed at scrum time too.
4 Go to comments“Firing me” should have been Gatland’s answer.
2 Go to commentsFinn Russell logic: “World” = 4 countries. Ireland may be at or near the top. FR’s bigger concern should be he and his fellow Scots (incl. the Bloemfontein ones) sliding back down to below top 10
42 Go to commentsMind games have begun. Ireland learned their lesson after saying they could beat England with 13 players or whatever. Still, if they win at Loftus, that would be impressive - final frontier etc.
58 Go to comments$950k for a Prop that isn’t fit enough to play 10 mins of rugby? Surely there is someone better to replace Big Mike with
4 Go to commentsFour Kiwis in that backline. A solid statement on the lack of invention, risk-taking and joy in the NH game; game of attrition and head- banging tedium. Longterm medical problems aplenty in the future!
6 Go to comments