Facial injury denies Matías Moroni chance to join Argentina greats

Matías Moroni will have to wait until at least November to become the seventh player to win 100 caps for Argentina after being ruled out of Saturday’s Test against Australia in Mendoza.

The outside back suffered a facial injury when coming off the bench to win his 99th cap in Saturday’s 27-21 loss to the Wallabies in Jujuy.

Moroni replaced inside-centre Faustino Sanchez Valarolo in the final quarter and made six tackles and a couple of carries during his time on the pitch.

Guido Petti and Matías Alemanno became Test centurions in July and Moroni was set to join them, 12 years after his Pumas debut.

Currently, former fly-half Nicolás Sánchez is the only centurion to have played in the backs, with the other 100-cap club members being current captain Pablo Matera, long-time leaders Julián Montoya and Agustín Creevy, and Matías Alemanno.

However, Moroni will now have to wait until the resumption of the Nations Championship to reach three figures, with the Pumas primed to take on Ireland, Italy and France in the second half of the biennual global competition.

It completes a miserable few weeks for the former PREM player, who dropped a pass with the line at his mercy in the last play of the game against the Springboks. The mistake left Moroni disconsolate at the final whistle as it ended his team’s hopes of snatching a draw from the game.

Meanwhile, flanker Facundo Cardozo is now available for selection, having had his development status in the Pumas squad upgraded.

Cardozo and Benjamín Ortiz, who retains his development status, and Franco Carrera, Agustín Fraga, Mateo Soler and Tobías Wade are the only members of the squad to still be uncapped.

Pumas head coach Felipe Contepomi chose not to blood any of them against the Wallabies last time out, but he did award first caps to a quartet of players in the 17-10 defeat to South Africa.

Tight-head Francisco Moreno started the match, while replacement hooker Leonel Oviedo and fellow forwards, Juan Penoucos and Juan Martín Scelzo, came off the bench.