Angry Pumas aiming to atone
SIDE HAVE BEEN STRUGGLING FOR CONSISTENCY Defeat left us with a bitter taste, says scrumhalf.
Argentina will be driven by a belief that the Pumas are capable of beating anyone on their day when they meet the Springboks again in Salta today, having let victory slip from their grasp last weekend.
However, the Pumas are still struggling for the consistency they need for the full 80 minutes if they are to win more often when they come up against the world’s top three teams in the Rugby Championship.
The Springboks were 10 points down going into the last 10 minutes in Nelspruit, but hit back with 17 unanswered points for a 30-23 victory.
The Pumas are still angry after letting slip what would have been a second consecutive win in South Africa and are now preparing to show they can add to their solitary success in 23 meetings with the Springboks.
Salta’s Estadio Padre Martearena, where the Pumas beat England in 2009 and lost a tight match with South Africa 33-31 in 2014, might be the place where they can make a breakthrough.
“The coaches showed us the video of those final 10 minutes and we saw everything we did badly and hadn’t done in the previous 70,” scrumhalf Martin Landajo said.
“South Africa made the most of our errors ... we need to learn to hold a lead and let the other team get desperate, not us. It left us with a bitter taste,” he told Thursday’s edition of La Nacion.
Landajo, Argentina’s only ever-present player since they joined the championship in 2012, said it was good to have another chance of revenge so soon.
“We’re confident because we did a lot of good things. There are less doubts and more certainties in our game now.”
Both coaches opted to stick almost man-for-man with the teams they fielded in Nelspruit, Allister Coetzee making one change to the front row due to injury, with Vincent Koch coming in for Julian Redelinghuys.
Coetzee said he did not want to disrupt his players as he sought greater cohesion, especially in a side playing away for the first time in their fifth Test this year and facing passionate support from Pumas fans.
His Argentine counterpart Daniel Hourcade has named an unchanged side for the first time in nearly three years in charge. –