Rugby Championship: The Pumas showed a good reaction but fell into a great South Africa

yes, as he said Michele Sheika several times since he took office, the ultimate goal is the World Cup of Francethe Australian coach must have served after the match against South Africa for the fifth round of the Rugby Championship at least two interesting conclusions. That means: The Cougars it is a team that can dominate the same world champions for almost a whole time by changing their image thanks to a very different attitude.

If the selected part of his backbone fails for a time (or more), he can hardly aspire to anything serious in the maximum tournament.

The analysis should not be reduced only to those two points that have ended up marking, ultimately, defeat for 36 to 20. But he needs to be much wider in order to try to meet on 9 September 2023, against England in Marseille, on his World Cup debut, with the best version of the team. This, finally, for Cheika, his staff, the players and the entire universe of Argentine rugby, is what matters.

The match played in the Libertadores de América-Ricardo Bochini was a bit strange. Because Los Pumas clearly showed two very different faces. They were two versions of the same team. And what has changed to go from a first half full of infractions, to suffer against the physical strength of the Springboks, to not being able to advance, to making mistakes like the one that allowed the astute and quick Jaden Hendrikse to find space to support his goal under the sticks, to a complement in which the Argentines have improved in contact and have given more speed to their transfer?

What changed was the attitude. And there, in that aspect, you need to mark a highlighted paragraph for those inserted Tomas Cubelli and Matias Moroni, which infected the team to move forward. One, in driving forward; the other, trying to appear everywhere to individually close a great afternoon after having exploited Kremer’s drum and having supported with anguish and suspense a goal that brought the Los Pumas to just two points from the scoreboard and still with plenty of time – more than 20 minutes – to turn the story around.

From the beginning, Los Pumas found the DNA of the South African game, which historically made the opponent a religion of physical rigor. Despite this, the team remained in the game and in the result during the first 20 minutes until the acceleration of the Springboks, Hendrikse himself supported and the New Zealand referee James Doleman decreed the penalty try and the yellow card to Carreras who has left the club without your pilot.

From that point on, the team went into a whirlwind of nerves and inaccuracies that only allowed the winners to score a good 16 points (22-6) difference by the product of three tries – there was a third. of the huge Malcolm Marx after the coordinated thrust of the offensive club – which could have been, at least, another. It was 20 lazy minutes in which concentration and circulation failed. Physically submissive – in every reorganization the first South African cell always won a couple of meters, after the departure of the mobile formations the Springbok that came off with the ball always advanced, the Argentine strikers could not break the first conflict-, The Pumas didn’t set foot in that part of the game and ended up paying for it.

A second time

But the second half arrives and the team ignites the dispute and contact. showed another face. Even without a positive leadership from Carreras – of which we talk about opening when it is necessary to name a very important part of the backbone of a rugby team -, Argentina played with variations from outside, added dizziness to the movements and so, after 20 minutes of pure insistence but without being able to specify, in just 180 seconds a penalty goal was put into play for high contrast by Smith to Cubelli when he was about to support and conquer Moroni.

I was for the heroic, but the Springboks played the last 10 minutes as they are, one of the top three teams in the world, and ended up winning. The second half began with a notable capture by Steyn, the penalty, the line, the maul and the try by Damian de Allende. And it ended with the flag victory of Mark, the best hooker in the world, who capped off a fantastic afternoon in which he played the 80 minutes with maximum intensity, took the lead in the scrum and let loose at slow play.

Decidedly, the Springboks won because they are superior to the Pumas. individually and collectively. And because the Argentines were unable to do what they expected during the week for a large part of the match: playing on the opponent’s field – only obtained in the first 30 minutes of the complement -, making an aggressive tackle, slowing down the ball, involving many rival people in the formations and preventing rival drivers to manage the game. In this way, the chance of beating South Africa for the fourth time in history – fourth in the last seven years – was finally far off.

There will be a new opportunity on Saturday. It will be in Durban, at Kings Park, where the Los Pumas took that historic first victory in 2015, with the legends of 1965 in the stands and ahead of the World Cup in England. Maybe it will repeat itself. There will always be something to dream about.

The summary of the match