Doctor orders Irish caution
FELIPE CONTEPOMI has come a l ong way from the playmaking matador t hat used to si t poised over l ong café lunches at Leinster’s old Riverview training base, shooting the breeze every so often when sitting down for interview with Sportsmail.
He has now crossed the divide, becoming part of the media herd following the World Cup. Working for ESPN Argentina is his brief and his welcoming demeanour at the Pumas’ hotel base at Vale of Glamorgan epitomises how the friendly atmosphere surrounding this fourth Ireland-Argentina World Cup instalment is very different from the spite of previous tournament meetings.
Take 2007. Trips at those finals to the Argentine hotel base were fruitless exercises, the cloak and dagger Pumas claiming they didn’t speak English when so many of them were bilingual.
The attitude was ‘stuff the Irish’ and save for the show of respect afforded to the retiring Denis Hickie the following Sunday, the Pumas showed no restraint in post-match celebrations aimed at rubbing their victory into the noses of the miffed and eliminated Ireland.
Eight years on the welcome is sweetness and light, Argentina putting forward numerous Engl i sh- speaking players to talk about this Sunday’s quarter-final.
It’s a respect that pleases Contepomi, believing it to be a sign of the confident way the Pumas now go about their business having transformed their style of play in recent years to become a competitive, ball-in-hand team.
‘Our main asset in 2007 was team spirit because, to be honest, we didn’t play that well.
‘This is the first Argentina team that prefers to have the ball than to defend. They feel more comfortable with the ball than without it.
‘I can see all the players have quite a good skillset, have been working for the last six years on those skills, and now you’re starting to see what good high performance programming, planning and development can do.
‘They can beat Ireland. It’s a 50/50 whereas a few years ago the matches were more 70/30 for Ireland.’
The build-up’s main talking point is the state of Johnny Sexton’s adductor and whether the injury that forced him off after just 25 minutes against France will prevent him from starting the quarter-final in two days’ time.
It was Contepomi’s early injury in the 2009 European Cup semifinal at Croke Park that famously enabled Sexton to come of age, leaping from the bench to put Munster emphatically in their place en route to lifting the trophy for the first time.
That situation was similar to what played out last Sunday in Cardiff, pretender to the throne Ian Madigan stepping in for Sexton and guiding his troops to an impressive victory. Contepomi, though, believes Ireland need Sexton fit and well, claiming his head holds the key to Joe Schmidt’s side creating history by reaching a first semi-final.
‘Johnny is the best out-half in Europe and one of the two or three best in the world. Ian, I know him a little but not as much as Johnny. Definitely, he is a quality player but I don’t know his personality.
‘Johnny is a guy who apart from being a great playmaker, a great kicker, a great tackler, whatever, technically his biggest asset is his head. He is the guy who is always trying to improve every single training session to get better and that makes him the best out-half in Europe. Johnny is the man, he is the ace for Ireland.’
Contepomi has great time for Schmidt’s squad. Back in the day when Irish-Argentine relations were at their most tense between 2002 and 2008, the doctor, who secured his qualifications in Dublin during his long stint at Leinster, would never have been permitted into the inner sanctum of the Ireland team, such was the mutual disl i ke the rivals had f or each other.
However, 16 months ago, Contepomi was welcomed with open arms, acting as down day tour guide f or Ireland i n Buenos Aires.
‘Argentina and Ireland have a lot of things in common in terms of their teams and this Irish team, you could see the guys enjoying the time together,’ he says about the insight gleaned in June 2014.
‘That is a key thing for groups, for good teams. You can see the All Blacks having a banter all the time, you can see Australia now really getting on together, you can see Ireland, can see Argentina. They are all teams that really enjoy the time they spend together and when you get that it is easier.
‘Here you have three to four months where your team-mates are your family and if you don’t get on well outside the pitch it is very difficult to produce something inside the pitch.
‘ What Ireland showed l ast weekend i s they have a real strength in depth. You lose three key players and they didn’t come down, they actually played better in the second half than in the first. That means the team is a solid team and i s convinced Schmidt has brought them to another level.
‘It will be very interesting. History is always history, but this is a big, big prize. It’s going to be a very tough game.’