PUMAS’ POLICY FAILURE
Ban on exiles is backfiring
TWO closed border policies, two very different outcomes. Restricting Ireland Test team selection to home-based players since Johnny Sexton’s 2015 return from France hasn’t done Joe Schmidt’s four-year reign any harm.
However, while Ireland have enjoyed a 70 per cent success rate with Schmidt sticking to the keep-it-local policy, Argentina’s decision to mirror the Irish model isn’t working out as well.
Daniel Hourcade’s record in charge of the Pumas since 2013 is now running at only 37.5 per cent, 34 losses in his 56game reign. Having eliminated Ireland at the 2015 World Cup quarter-finals, Hourcade’s hope was his national team would prosper from picking only homebased players when the new Buenos Aires-based Jaguars were admitted to Super Rugby in 2016.
However, that ambition is going unfulfilled, leading to demands that current restrictions barring overseas options should be lifted.
Here’s the bottom line: just one of a dozen Rugby Championship matches have been won since Hourcade opted for locals only in 2016 and 2017, no improvement on the 2012-15 record where only two of 21 games were won. And as for their November results when on tour in Europe, just one match in five has been won since the restriction compared to four wins in nine prior to that.
These frequent losses are causing tension. Whereas Irish exiles such as Ian Madigan and the soonto-depart Simon Zebo just suck up their Test squad exclusions without a word of criticism about the way the national side is run, Argentinians left out of the loop by Hourcade haven’t been as silent. Saracens tighthead Juan Figallo spoke out just last Sunday in the UK-based Rugby Paper. He didn’t pull his punches.
‘It’s very frustrating because I want to play international rugby, but can’t because of the new rule they introduced. There was a lot of pressure on me to go home and I understand why they want players back to have a Jaguars team that can compete in Super Rugby, but guys like myself and Marcelo Bosch were already signed with contracts and we’re happy here,’ explained the 29-year-old, who has 24 caps and played at two World Cups.
‘When I was younger people in Argentina said I needed to go to Europe and play professionally if I was going to play international rugby, but now they change the rules and expect me to move my whole family and life back to Argentina.
‘I’m not going to do that, this is my life and I’ll stick with my decision, but it’s hard to watch my country losing so many matches and not being involved. I can still do a job and you need players from different leagues who bring a different mentality and different ways of training. ‘It’s good to have that because if you involve the best players from abroad it means everyone must earn their positions to play. Right now, the first XV of the Jaguars is the first XV of Argentina and that competition is not healthy. They say they might change the rule in World Cup year (2019). I really hope so because it is hard to watch from outside and I’m ready if they want me.’
On Ireland’s June 2014 tour Argentina’s initial change in tack was evident. Having gone to the 2011 World Cup with a 30-strong squad featuring 18-French based players and five more attached to clubs in England, they recognised the need to get their act together domestically with their admission to the Rugby Championship, which clashed with the European club circuit.
Ireland’s visit was a first glimpse at the conveyor belt of academyproduced talent. Hourcade’s squad for the Tests in Resistencia and Tucuman was made up of 24 locally-based players, two unattached and just five who played professionally abroad.
Come the World Cup 15 months later, Argentina’s squad of 31 reinforced how the landscape was changing as it contained just one France-based player, six from England, 14 locals and another 10 who were unattached and waiting for the Jaguars to begin operations.
The belief was that having a Test team playing together at club level would generate immediate success, but Super Rugby has been an unforgiving experience. Just 11 of 30 matches have been won, leaving the Argentinian side 13th and 10th best overall in the 18-team tournament in 2016 and 2017.
That’s not good enough and this culture of losing is carrying over in the international set-up as it is the same faces involved. Of the 32 players Hourcade has with him this month, 30 come from the 2017 Jaguars set-up, with two more from the Argentina A XV.
It’s a massive gamble compared to Ireland’s policy where there are four provinces feeding the national squad.
What made the Pumas great was a melting pot of different cultures combining, legends such as Gus Pichot, Felipe Contepomi, Mario Ledesma and Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe playing at top European clubs and bringing rugby education back into the Test team mix.
Current day Argentina, though, are missing this outside influence and look stale in comparison. Time for change? It’s increasingly appearing that way.