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Ex-Pumas skippers Creevy and Pichot weigh in on the Pablo Matera controversy

(Photo by Juan Mabromata/AFP via Getty Images)

Recently disgraced Argentina trio Pablo Matera, Guido Petti and Santiago Socino have received the support from a number of former Pumas captains. The three players were suspended on Tuesday and Matera was stripped of his captaincy for social media posts shared between 2011 and 2013 that were described by the Argentinian Rugby Union as “discriminatory and xenophobic”.

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Since then, a handful of former teammates have defended the players. It goes without saying that they in no way have supported what the players had previously said, but they have defended their character today. 

Agustin Creevy, Argentina’s most capped player and captain, is one former international to attest to the players’ characters. The current London Irish hooker served as Matera’s captain for the majority of the flanker’s career, although their roles reversed during the latter stages of Creevy’s 89-cap Test career. 

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Australia look ahead to their Tri-Nations clash with Argentina

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Australia look ahead to their Tri-Nations clash with Argentina

Creevy played extensively alongside Matera and Petti for Argentina and played with Socino with the Jaguares. In an Instagram post in response to the recent events, he said that their tweets “do not represent them at all”. 

He also defended the reputation of rugby, which has been dragged through the mud in recent days in Argentina due to additional criticism they received for not honouring football legend Diego Maradona appropriately. 

 

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A post shared by Agustin Creevy (@agustincreevy)

It only goes to show that all glory is fleeting in rugby in Argentina as Matera was enshrined in folklore only two weeks ago after Argentina’s first victory over the All Blacks. Creevy wrote this message in both Spanish and English: “I deeply regret what happened this week with regard to Argentinian rugby. I have the need to express myself with the intention that my words are taken with respect because it is from a place of respect that I say them.

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“As a group, we know each other. I know Pablo, Guido and Santiago, and I know who they are today. The sordid tweets they wrote years ago do not represent them at all. They have acknowledged it themselves, felt ashamed and apologised. All people make mistakes, and athletes are not exempt from that.

“I particularly regret the stigmatisation of our sport. I understand that there are behaviours that embarrass all of us who practice it, but this is a sport, like others, practised by people with errors and virtues. Some serious mistakes, yes, where you have to work to improve, as in all areas.

Rugby is a beautiful sport, practised by people who come from different social classes and different parts of the country. I say this because I have lived and experienced it firsthand, it is not a speech or a managed position. Rugby is a meeting point of great diversity, and that is how it should continue to be.

“Is there a place to improve, to evolve, to grow? Sure, and hopefully this job gets done. Hopefully, more and more people help open up rugby more and more, and more and more kids play and share time on and off the pitch. Let’s try that sport (and if it is rugby, much better) continue to create bridges.”

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Former World Rugby vice-chairman and ex-Argentina captain Agustin Pichot also joined Creevy in showing solidarity with the players while also condemning what they had formerly written. 

He wrote: “All three players’ tweets were wrong. I believe in their repentance and in their maturation since they wrote it. We have to continue making a deep self-criticism in our sport; this year is showing us that we have to keep improving.

“For me, rugby is not the atrocities that I read or hear; for me, rugby is something incredible and it helps many people to try to be good people and also good athletes.”

This is an ordeal that will tarnish the careers of the three players and something they will carry with them, but they are not being thrown under the bus by their former teammates. Juan Martin Hernandez and Horacio Agulla are two more former Pumas that have echoed the sentiments shared by Creevy and Pichot as the players await their punishment.

 

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J
JW 2 hours ago
'Passionate reunion of France and New Zealand shows Fabien Galthie is wrong to rest his stars'

Ok, managed to read the full article..

... New Zealand’s has only 14 and the professional season is all over within four months. In France, club governance is the responsibility of an independent organisation [the Ligue Nationale de Rugby or LNR] which is entirely separate from the host union [the Fédération Française de Rugby or FFR]. Down south New Zealand Rugby runs the provincial and the national game.

That is the National Provincial Championship, a competition of 14 representative union based teams run through the SH international window and only semi professional (paid only during it's running). It is run by NZR and goes for two and a half months.


Super Rugby is a competition involving 12 fully professional teams, of which 5 are of New Zealand eligibility, and another joint administered team of Pacific Island eligibility, with NZR involvement. It was a 18 week competition this year, so involved (randomly chosen I believe) extra return fixtures (2 or 3 home and away derbys), and is run by Super Rugby Pacific's own independent Board (or organisation). The teams may or may not be independently run and owned (note, this does not necessarily mean what you think of as 'privately owned').


LNR was setup by FFR and the French Government to administer the professional game in France. In New Zealand, the Players Association and Super Rugby franchises agreed last month to not setup their own governance structure for professional rugby and re-aligned themselves with New Zealand Rugby. They had been proposing to do something like the English model, I'm not sure how closely that would have been aligned to the French system but it did not sound like it would have French union executive representation on it like the LNR does.

In the shaky isles the professional pyramid tapers to a point with the almighty All Blacks. In France the feeling for country is no more important than the sense of fierce local identity spawned at myriad clubs concentrated in the southwest. Progress is achieved by a nonchalant shrug and the wide sweep of nuanced negotiation, rather than driven from the top by a single intense focus.

Yes, it is pretty much a 'representative' selection system at every level, but these union's are having to fight for their existence against the regime that is NZR, and are currently going through their own battle, just as France has recently as I understand it. A single focus, ala the French game, might not be the best outcome for rugby as a whole.


For pure theatre, it is a wonderful article so far. I prefer 'Ntamack New Zealand 2022' though.

The young Crusader still struggles to solve the puzzle posed by the shorter, more compact tight-heads at this level but he had no problem at all with Colombe.

It was interesting to listen to Manny during an interview on Maul or Nothing, he citied that after a bit of banter with the All Black's he no longer wanted one of their jersey's after the game. One of those talks was an eye to eye chat with Tamaiti Williams, there appear to be nothing between the lock and prop, just a lot of give and take. I thought TW angled in and caused Taylor to pop a few times, and that NZ were lucky to be rewarded.

f you have a forward of 6ft 8ins and 145kg, and he is not at all disturbed by a dysfunctional set-piece, you are in business.

He talked about the clarity of the leadership that helped alleviate any need for anxiety at the predicaments unfolding before him. The same cannot be said for New Zealand when they had 5 minutes left to retrieve a match winning penalty, I don't believe. Did the team in black have much of a plan at any point in the game? I don't really call an autonomous 10 vehicle they had as innovative. I think Razor needs to go back to the dealer and get a new game driver on that one.

Vaa’i is no match for his power on the ground. Even in reverse, Meafou is like a tractor motoring backwards in low gear, trampling all in its path.

Vaa'i actually stops him in his tracks. He gets what could have been a dubious 'tackle' on him?

A high-level offence will often try to identify and exploit big forwards who can be slower to reload, and therefore vulnerable to two quick plays run at them consecutively.

Yes he was just standing on his haunches wasn't he? He mentioned that in the interview, saying that not only did you just get up and back into the line to find the opposition was already set and running at you they also hit harder than anything he'd experienced in the Top 14. He was referring to New Zealands ultra-physical, burst-based Super style of course, which he was more than a bit surprised about. I don't blame him for being caught out.


He still sent the obstruction back to the repair yard though!

What wouldn’t the New Zealand rugby public give to see the likes of Mauvaka and Meafou up front..

Common now Nick, don't go there! Meafou showed his Toulouse shirt and promptly got his citizenship, New Zealand can't have him, surely?!?


As I have said before with these subjects, really enjoy your enthusiasm for their contribution on the field and I'd love to see more of their shapes running out for Vern Cotter and the like styled teams.

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