'Dominici was smoking a cigar': Argentina's 2007 World Cup remembered in new RugbyPass series

Former Argentina wing Horacio Agulla has revealed how a trip to Disneyland Paris and a half-time tunnel scrap fuelled Los Pumas’ remarkable 2007 Rugby World Cup campaign.

As part of a new and exclusive RugbyPass series, Agulla, Juan Martin Hernandez, Felipe Contepomi and Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe tell the inside story of their historic run to third place sixteen years ago.

Rugby World Cup stories will recount the brightest tales and shed new light on the rich history of the game’s showpiece tournament in the lead-up to France 2023.

The first piece chronicles Argentina’s exploits in the same host nation, sinking Les Bleus twice and beating Ireland and Scotland as they shook up the rugby world.

Agulla recalls that after losing the semi-final to South Africa, captain Agustin Pichot took his players and their families to Disneyland for a three-day break.

“We were destroyed after the game,” says Agulla. “We couldn’t think about playing France again in the third-place match. We already beat them; they are going to come to smash us at home. They were angry.

“On Sunday, all the leaders came together and decided we weren’t going to train until Friday. We had just one session that week. We didn’t need to train. We knew everything already. We needed to get our heads right again.

“We had money from the players, everyone who made a publicity appearance or sponsorship event paid into it, and if we needed anything we took money from there. We couldn’t count on the union to pay. We used part of that money to fly all our families out from Argentina for the last game, and went to Disneyland Paris together.

“We were 60 Argentineans in Disneyland, not thinking about rugby, having food together, going around the parks. We spent quality time with our families for three days. We got to the training session full of energy again.”

Agulla, only 21 at the time, was embroiled in a half-time fracas as France were put to the sword 34-10 in the third-place play-off.

“The game was very, very heated,” he said. “We were walking through the tunnel and I remember our physio was trying to strap up one of our players. He was kind of in the middle of the tunnel and one of the French players pushed him, and he went down. I was coming from behind and there was a little fight there. Getting out of the tunnel as well, the same thing happened. Imagine how we started that second half.

“After the game we were singing, same as we did after every training session or game, with our speakers, loud, around the press area, joking there. The French guys were passing by and they were angry, ‘you are not respecting us’. Man, we are just enjoying ourselves –go away and get on your bus.

“We saw them after in the nightclub. I was watching like, ‘oh f**k there’s going to be a fight here, where do I stand if there’s a fight? I’m not going in the middle of it, I’ll get smashed.’ I looked around and just saw Christophe Dominici on the edge with a cigar and I was like, oh man, this guy understands everything. After that everything was cool. At the end of the night, we were all drinking together.”