Mateo Carreras, the Argentine tryman of English rugby: “I want to fight to be the best winger in the Premiership”

John Carrerasthe same who played in the Primera de Los Tarcos and was a regular for the Tucuman national team, today, visiting Newcastle, looks proudly at the place his son occupies Matteo. The Falcons winger is the Premiership sensation: To the seven tries he had scored in his last seven games of 2022 he added the three he scored this Saturday against champions Leicester in a 45-26 win. The tryman of the powerful English championship, with 11 victories, is only three lengths off Agustín Creevy’s single-season record. And he still has seven games to play.

-How do you explain this fantastic present of yours in Newcastle?

-It helped me a lot to be excluded from the July window of Los Pumas last year. This made me look inward, be very self-critical, and know what I was doing wrong. I didn’t play much with the ball and I needed to be more involved in the game. By the time they called me about the November window, I already felt I had improved on more than 50 percent of the things I set out to improve. And trust helped a lot too.

– But did you imagine this was happening to you? You are a machine to test and many, like the one you did in Northampton after a 70m run, have gone viral.

-When I arrived at the club in 2020, I thought of it as a long-term goal. But I didn’t imagine it.

-Playing in the three-quarter line with two Los Pumas teammates in Matías Orlando and Tucuman native Matías Moroni should be a major help. Or are you interested?

-It’s 100% different doing it with them. For me it is a pleasure and a source of pride to have by my side two teammates who have each played more than 60 games for Los Pumas. I learn a lot with them and they always have the right word to advise me.

-What are your goals?

-Personally, I want to fight to be the best winger in the Premiership and, team-wise, finish in the top four. We have grown up. We had already beaten Sale, who are struggling up front, and now we beat Leicester. The team has grown in confidence and it shows.

– I recently told you about the try you scored at Northampton and many have compared you to Messi for that move. But also in Los Pumitas and Seven you scored tries that have become famous.

-The confrontation was very crazy. Even if it is a pleasure that they compare me with him and what else I want them to do, I am far from Messi ha ha ha. It was a game we were losing by nine points with seven minutes to go. I saw that the two second rows and one pillar were left in front of me and I was sent to the middle of the field. Luckily I got to the goal.

-What is the best thing you have as a sail and what do you need to improve?

-The best thing I have is perseverance. And to improve I lack many things. You can always improve.

-How is life in Newcastle? Do you feel very cold in these months of the year?

– Precisely today was a beautiful day and we played with 12 degrees. We like the city a lot, it’s big, it has a bit of everything: beach, mountains. I live with my girlfriend Paula (NdeR: sister of Nicolás Sánchez) and we take the opportunity to go around on our days off, we go out to have a coffee or a mate. Also, two or three times a week we meet up with the Argentinian guys from the club because our friends get along very well. Now Pedro Rubiolo has joined Newcastle so we are showing him what it is like here in the north of England.

-How did you experience the World Cup?

-We all watched the games with him together. roasted Orlando e protection Moroni. Tute loves football very much and would throw us data on the colors of each team. Unverifiable data ha ha ha.

-And what’s strange about Tucumán?

-A lot of things. Moments with family, friends or at the disco. I was spending 12 hours a day at the club.

Time has flown by since those days in Los Tarcos. How Carreras flies every time he takes the ball and points on goal.

The goal of reaching the World Cup with Los Pumas

Mateo Carreras knows it won’t be easy to reach France 2023 because his position “is the most competitive in the national team and day after day and week after week you have to improve to prove it,” he stresses. Either way, he obviously he’s in the orbit of Michael Cheika and the Los Pumas staff “I don’t try to think about the World Cup, but I try to play my best rugby and improve individually. If I go to the World Cup it will be a consequence of that”holds.

You play in England. Are you talking to the English about the match on 9 September in their World Cup debut?

-No talking. But both sides know it will be a final.