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Diplomacy took a shove from the Argentinian Ambassador this week.
His Excellency Mr Pedro Villagra Delgado was hosting a cocktail party in honour of the Pumas' arrival in the Rugby Championship. The Ambassador's message is that his country won't miss this opportunity, and that its entry into the southern hemisphere's elite rugby competition augurs economic and sporting achievements.
That means beating the Wallabies.
It may not happen at Skilled Stadium on the Gold Coast this Saturday night, but the return match in Rosario on October 7 will give the Pumas an enormous opportunity to claim a big scalp.
As one rugby pundit put it, the Argentinians are like the Italians but they play that style of game a whole lot better.
The first tactic is to bloody the opposition's nose with a stampede off the defensive line – hundreds of kilos of power on the hoof. It tramples through the breakdown and often has halfbacks and fly-halves folding around each other to reset the play. The Springboks tried to counter and go through the Pumas but failed.
Then a mirage is set up. Show the opposition a whole load of sideline and wait for them to try for it. False width is an Argentine speciality and trying to get around them proved very difficult for the All Blacks. Rugby's best outside backs never really opened Argentina up.
At the Argentine function in Sydney, former Puma and Wallaby Enrique "Topo" Rodriguez spoke as a cross-cultural ambassador. One of the world's finest-ever front rowers pointed out there are now 100,000 registered rugby players in Argentina. He denies most of them are props.
Read more: http://wwos.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=8532299
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Originally Posted by Rex Messup
