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Tomás Albornoz magic sees Argentina run rampant against Italy

Tomas Albornoz of Argentina celebrates after scoring a try. Photo by Emmanuele Ciancaglini/Getty Images

It has been debated for a handful of years if Santiago Carreras was the right choice when wearing the number 10 jersey. In a country that had the likes of Hugo Porta, Gonzalo Quesada, Felipe Contepomi in the position and tenants of a number 10 jersey of a different sport such as a certain Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, who wears that coveted number is quite important.

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Santiago Carreras has been a great servant of Argentine rugby and is much loved in Northampton where much of his professional rugby has been played. In saying this, he has played more at fullback than flyhalf at club level. And, it must be stressed, he is a player that has a lot of Test rugby in him. Maybe not at flyhalf, but certainly is an asset in a squad of 23.

When Michael Cheika joined Los Pumas as an advisor, he was convinced, and convinced coach Mario Ledesma, that Carreras was the one to marshal the troops from 10. When he became coach, the Australian was such a fan of Carreras that others were not offered real chances.

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Tomás Albornoz had only broken into the Jaguares’ squad when COVID arrived and his opportunities soon dried. He was given a few cameo opportunities but never sufficient time to showcase his value.

Until this year. 

Felipe Contepomi was named Pumas’ head coach and even if he fully understood what was needed in the pivotal position, Carreras was first choice until Albornoz was given a real opportunity, which he took it with both hands.

He played the second half in that win in Wellington against the All Blacks and then started against Australia in Santa Fe. Los Pumas won 67-27.

His ability to launch an eager set of backs was as noticeable that day as it was in Udine where Los Pumas beat Italy 50-18 to open their November tour.

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He scored the third Argentine try, and was involved in all that was good about Los Pumas’ attack and even showed what he can offer, moving forward, in defense.

Notes from his first-half performance read:

3rd minute – Albornoz penalty

5th, 26th and 38th minute – Albornoz turnovers under deep positional pressure

6th minute – Albornoz launches a deep attack

10th minute – Albornoz goal from a Mallía try

28th minute – Isgró captures a precise high kick from Albornoz, leading to Argentina’s second try

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There was a lot more of that in a second half that included his try, born from a well-placed kick and the pressure of his teammates before the ball squirted for him to run some 30 metres to score under the posts.

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The solid win for Los Pumas was, of course, much more than an Albornoz one-man show.

The forward pack dominated throughout, with the scrum proving to be a solid platform to attack from, giving forward momentum for the backs to run. The lineout, which brought an easy 73rd-minute try for veteran lock Matías Alemnanno – had the regularity that a top side is after. 

Lock Pedro Rubiolo tackled as a flanker, the flankers played as a back and the backs scored five of the seven tries – with winger Santiago Cordero getting a brace.

Whilst he was on the field, scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou, who is as tidy as he is prudent, gave good, quick, service to ensure that when Albornoz launched attacks that hurt an Italian side that paid a high price for their defensive naivety, unable to stop the momentum generated by Los Pumas.

This loss was the biggest since Gonzalo Quesada took over at the start of the year.

There were a lot of positives to carry on going into a much harder proposition in six days when they play Ireland at the Aviva on Friday.

Defence

147
Tackles Made
169
38
Tackles Missed
35
79%
Tackle Completion %
83%

The Irish will be hurting as hell after their loss against the All Blacks and know that their visitors have a lot of their own IP. Felipe Contepomi is a much-loved son of Leinster where he starred in a golden era and later was assistant coach.

He knows what the Irish are about and some of the trends the men in green do is similar to what Argentina aims to do. 

“Ireland is another type of team and it will be a different challenge; we know what we have to do,” said coach Contepomi from the sideline.

“We have a shorter week, we have to travel, so planning is crucial to be in the best possible shape to impose our game plan and to try to have the most favourable result”

The stakes are much higher as is the pressure under which Albornoz, if he starts again, will be under. Carreras, nursing a calf injury, will be available as will Pablo Matera having completed a two-match ban.

Captain Julián Montoya was happy. “It was an incredible game but there are always things that can be corrected,” he said. “We did what we said we wanted to do and we played with the intensity that we had planned.”

“We must enjoy the win; we worked hard to achieve it and we deserved it. It is a short week and we must soon refocus.”

Watch the highly acclaimed five-part documentary Chasing the Sun 2, chronicling the journey of the Springboks as they strive to successfully defend the Rugby World Cup, free on RugbyPass TV (*unavailable in Africa)

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Comments

2 Comments
T
TI 50 days ago

Albornoz pretty much put his name on that Pumas' 10 jersey. What a performance.

Argentina with a shaken-up roster, but still pulverized Italy. They play an intelligent game, too: kicked double the metres than Italy did. They're not just running the ball.

R
Rodrigo N 50 days ago

Juani Hernandez also at 10 for Los Pumas... such a great player.

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AllyOz 20 hours ago
Does the next Wallabies coach have to be an Australian?

I will preface this comment by saying that I hope Joe Schmidt continues for as long as he can as I think he has done a tremendous job to date. He has, in some ways, made the job a little harder for himself by initially relying on domestic based players and never really going over the top with OS based players even when he relaxed his policy a little more. I really enjoy how the team are playing at the moment.


I think Les Kiss, because (1) he has a bit more international experience, (2) has previously coached with Schmidt and in the same setup as Schmidt, might provide the smoothest transition, though I am not sure that this necessarily needs to be the case.


I would say one thing though about OS versus local coaches. I have a preference for local coaches but not for the reason that people might suppose (certainly not for the reason OJohn will have opined - I haven't read all the way down but I think I can guess it).


Australia has produced coaches of international standing who have won World Cups and major trophies. Bob Dwyer, Rod Macqueen, Alan Jones, Michael Cheika and Eddie Jones. I would add John Connolly - though he never got the international success he was highly successful with Queensland against quality NZ opposition and I think you could argue, never really got the run at international level that others did (OJohn might agree with that bit). Some of those are controversial but they all achieved high level results. You can add to that a number of assistants who worked OS at a high level.


But what the lack of a clear Australian coach suggests to me is that we are no longer producing coaches of international quality through our systems. We have had some overseas based coaches in our system like Thorn and Wessels and Cron (though I would suggest Thorn was a unique case who played for Australia in one code and NZ in the other and saw himself as a both a NZer and a Queenslander having arrived here at around age 12). Cron was developed in the Australian system anyway, so I don't have a problem with where he was born.


But my point is that we used to have systems in Australia that produced world class coaches. The systems developed by Dick Marks, which adopted and adapted some of the best coaching training approaches at the time from around the world (Wales particularly) but focussed on training Australian coaches with the best available methods, in my mind (as someone who grew up and began coaching late in that era) was a key part of what produced the highly skilled players that we produced at the time and also that produced those world class coaches. I think it was slipping already by the time I did my Level II certificate in 2002 and I think Eddie Jones influence and the priorities of the executive, particularly John O'Neill, might have been the beginning of the end. But if we have good coaching development programmes at school and junior level that will feed through to representative level then we will have


I think this is the missing ingredient that both ourselves and, ironically, Wales (who gave us the bones of our coaching system that became world leading), is a poor coaching development system. Fix that and you start getting players developing basic skills better and earlier in their careers and this feeds through all the way through the system and it also means that, when coaching positions at all levels come up, there are people of quality to fill them, who feed through the system all the way to the top. We could be exporting more coaches to Japan and England and France and the UK and the USA, as we have done a bit in the past.


A lack of a third tier between SR and Club rugby might block this a little - but I am not sure that this alone is the reason - it does give people some opportunity though to be noticed and play a key role in developing that next generation of players coming through. And we have never been able to make the cost sustainable.


I don't think it matters that we have an OS coach as our head coach at the moment but I think it does tell us something about overall rugby ecosystem that, when a coaching appointment comes up, we don't have 3 or 4 high quality options ready to take over. The failure of our coaching development pathway is a key missing ingredient for me and one of the reasons our systems are failing.

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