Ken Borland

If anyone ever wanted proof that a new broom sweeps clean in rugby, they need look no further than new Argentina coach Daniel Hourcade’s radically changed team for the opening Rugby Championship clash against South Africa at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday.

Argentina have grown accustomed to fielding different squads depending on the occasion and the sides that played their previous international, against Scotland in Cordoba; their last match of 2013, against Italy in Rome; and their previous Rugby Championship fixture, versus the Wallabies in Rosario; are all very dissimilar.

Only two players that started the 21-19 defeat to Scotland will feature against the Springboks, while there are nine changes and a positional switch to the side that beat Italy 19-14 and only 11 of the 23 that were hammered 54-17 by Australia have survived for the next Rugby Championship engagement.

Players such as the retired midfield star Felipe Contepomi, injured wing Juan Imhoff, hooker Eusebio Guinazu and experienced locks Patricio Albacete and Manuel Carizza are all conspicuous by their absence, but Hourcade struck a defiant tone when announcing the team on Thursday.

“It is a young team without much experience, but they are quality players with a lot of capacity. We believe that we have very good players in this side and we want to give them experience and support them,” Hourcade said.

The new Pumas coach acknowledges that his team are the underdogs against the Springboks, who thrashed them 73-13 a year ago in Soweto, but he believes they can help grow his side.

“South Africa are a great team, with a very good coach and a very strong mentality. They are at the point of ascending.

“But this is an excellent chance for us to build as a team. We’re prepared for what South Africa will bring.

“Last year’s match here we will take as part of our experience, it was down to attitude and it was an important lesson. It was part of the process, we will learn off those results and continue that process,” the 56-year-old said.

One area where Argentina do traditionally boast plenty of firepower is in the scrum and the presence of Leicester Tigers veteran Marcos Ayerza in the number one jersey will certainly pique the interest of Springbok tightheads Jannie du Plessis and Frans Malherbe.

“Argentina are always a big test, but I’m looking forward to it. I haven’t played them before and I haven’t scrummed against them.

“It’s a massive opportunity for me to secure my spot as the back-up tighthead and it’s all up to me to take it, that’s the bottom line. It comes down to my primary role, if I don’t do that well then I won’t be selected, but the goal is to become a more modern forward, with more mobility and ball skills,” Malherbe said.

While Argentina have been understandably conservative in their first two years of Rugby Championship participation, Hourcade says they need to do more with the ball if they are to beat one of the big three.

“When we consider the teams we are playing against, then we have to take risks. If we just play slowly then all we are doing is trying to stop the inevitable ending, we know we will lose.

“We need to move the ball more and play quicker, it does have risks but we assume that risk. We will make some mistakes, but that’s part of the game and the only way to grow this team,” Hourcade said.

Centres Juan-Martin Hernandez and Marcelo Bosch are certainly looking forward to getting their hands on the ball more often.

“For me personally, I prefer to have the ball in my hands rather than having to tackle. I’m happier with the current approach, but we know we are playing against the three best teams in the world and it will be tough.

“There’s a lot of responsibility on us to manage the ball, but first of all we have to obtain the ball. There are steps you have to go through before you can play that style,” outside centre Bosch said.

As positive as the Pumas might want to be, the numbers that matter will be amongst the forwards, in terms of securing first-phase possession, dominating the gain-line and winning turnovers.

A number that may be decisive is  140 – the difference between the 411 Test caps the Springbok pack and five replacements have, compared to the 271 of their counterparts.

Argentina team (caps in brackets): 15-Joaquin Tuculet (11), 14-Horacio Agulla (51), 13-Marcelo Bosch (25), 12-Juan-Martin Hernandez (44), 11-Manuel Montero (13), 10-Nicolas Sanchez (21), 9-Martin Landajo (31), 8-Juan-Manuel Leguizamon (55), 7-Juan-Martin Fernandez Lobbe (56), 6-Pablo Matera (11), 5-Tomas Lavanini (9), 4-Mariano Galarza (18), 3-Ramiro Herrera (2), 2-Agustin Creevy (28), 1-Marcos Ayerza (48). Substitutes – 16-Matias Cortese (7), 17-Lucas Noguera Paz (5), 18-Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro (7), 19-Matias Alemanno (5), 20-Leonardo Senatore (20), 21-Tomas Cubelli (25), 22-Santiago Gonzalez Iglesias (7), 23-Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino (33).

The Senegal rugby side is not the first team – nor will they be the last – to have masked any technical deficiencies with sheer passion and commitment to the cause and the men from the West African republic are making waves on their continent.

Despite only playing regular international rugby since 2003, Senegal are already ranked in the top eight in Africa and are 43rd in the world. Although they are out of contention to qualify for the 2015 World Cup, they have certainly shown that they can compete with the other African countries, having lost to the big men of Namibia by just two points in 2012 and by only three in 2008.

“Our scrums and lineouts are sometimes not that good, but our men are very brave, we have very aggressive defence which shows there is a lot of solidarity in the team. When we play against Namibia, they only just beat us,” Jérôme Gérard, the secretary-general of the Fédération Sénégalaise de Rugby (FSR) says.

This rapid improvement has all come about because of the FSR’s focus on making rugby an attractive sport for the local population, rather than just a pursuit of immigrants.

“Rugby has been played in Senegal by French colonialists since the 1920s and they created a union in 1960. But it was only for the French; for 20-30 years rugby was a game only for the French colonists and the military.

“But Senegalese youngsters became curious and in the late 1990s there was real development thanks to a new policy aiming to develop rugby in the schools. The FSR increased the visibility of the game, before that it was really unknown.

“Rugby took off in 2005 when Senegal participated in their first Rugby World Cup qualifying and played six international games. The union identified players of Senegal origin in France and we tried to build a strong national team with expats to raise the profile of the game,” Gérard explains.

All of this has led to the International Rugby Board (IRB) increasing their generous development grant every year, Senegal being one of the few African nations to enjoy these increases.

“This recognition of our work is obviously very pleasing and it shows that we are growing rugby in Senegal. We also get technical and training support from the IRB and the Confederation of African Rugby [CAR] – professionals come to Senegal and deliver short, intense courses,” Gérard says.

The health of the game is, of course, inextricably linked to the state of refereeing and Gérard is particularly grateful for the IRB’s assistance in this regard.

“We have had very good support to train our referees. Top referees have come from France since 2006/7 for one or two weeks every year. It has allowed us to build a training strategy for referees, which is very important for us. You can’t play rugby without referees.”

Sylvain Mane is a product of these programs, the 22-year-old being Senegal’s first international referee, currently undergoing high-level training in Stellenbosch, South Africa.

The FSR is also working to change the concentration of rugby clubs in the capital, Dakar.

“In the past two to three years, the union has aimed to extend our programs to other regions and there are now seven or eight new entities, especially in the northern city of Saint-Louis. Not all of these clubs play 15s, some of them start with Sevens,” Gérard says.

In 2005, the national rugby championships comprised just five clubs, all of them made up of French immigrants; eight years later, there were 12 clubs and all but one of them was fully Senegalese. This year 18 clubs came to at least one of the national championships, whether it be men’s, women’s, 15s or Sevens.

The FSR have achieved all this with just two paid employees!

“We remain a humble organisation, only two people extract a salary, all the rest are volunteers. We are amazed at the budgets some teams had for the Africa Cup 1B in Tunisia last month – it was almost what we have for an entire year! And yet we’ve stayed in the top eight for the last three years,” Gérard says.

Such economic constraints mean the FSR operate without much leeway, but Gérard says qualifying for the 2019 World Cup is the target, but this won’t happen without improved financial resources.

“If we can generate more revenue, get more sponsors, then qualifying for the 2019 World Cup could be a real target. But it’s very difficult for us to get on TV, from time to time they will send a reporter, a few times a year. Last year, when we hosted the Africa Cup Group B, we negotiated coverage for the first time and we hope to get a magazine show going on TV. But we need resources to do that and we’ll try and get one or two sponsors as well,” Gérard says.

The passion on the field is clearly being matched in the boardroom and, the rest of Africa be warned, Senegalese rugby is on the rise.

http://www.irb.com/newsmedia/regional/newsid=2072262.html#senegal+ready+make+move