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Though the four teams have spent the week travelling home or preparing to travel away again, here at the Big Questions we don’t get luxuries such as a week off.
Instead, having taken the first two weeks of the 2015 Rugby Championship to watch and observe, Diggercane, Harry Jones, and I this week turn our focus toward Los Pumas.
Last season’s big improvers seem to have started this season a little slowly, and we’re here to ponder just why that is in the Big Questions Argentinean special.
Diggercane asks: Are Argentina too forward orientated in their approach to Test match Rugby?
It certainly appears that way to me. A world-class set piece is often let down by an inability to create, particularly in midfield. Of the two games played this year, two tries have been scored through rolling mauls close to the line and opportunities afforded to them on the back of ill-discipline from the opposing team.
Our perception down south is a forward-orientated approach, underlined by numerous articles surrounding the Pumas’ strength at the scrum, and how our teams must combat this weapon.
Argentina need to balance their approach and build their game to complement their forward strength, rather than continue to depend on it.
Harry: Yes. The Pumas are trying to use siege warfare, without siege guns.
In Mendoza they launched only 11 popgun kicks; far too few for Test rugby, and all of them too short. Two puny Nicolas Sanchez punts handed the Wallabies tries. Slow exits with ball-in-hand are brutally tough against teams with a real open-side ruck-master.
The stat sheet bears witness. The Pumas had a big edge in possession, but never really looked like scoring on one of their 122 carries. The home team simply couldn’t cut incisively into the red zone, despite several attacks with more than seven phases.
This no-kick, pick-and-go style tires out a pack. It’s no coincidence that the Pumas’ tackling weakened in the last quarter. More adventure in the midfield is a must.
Brett: Yeah, I think they are, too.
I do wonder, though, how much of it is planned and how much of it is because of what still appears to be a fairly uncertain backline, both in personal and combinations. The backs are involved, but there’s no cohesion; it’s all one-out stuff and going to ground.
Looking at the same stats Harry has, Argentina with 56 per cent possession, made 42 more runs than Australia for the match, but made only 40 more metres. The Pumas’ backs made a minimum of four runs each for a minimum of 22 metres, whereas the Australian backs made a minimum of two runs each for a minimum of just nine metres.
So perhaps it’s not just forward-oriented; perhaps the issue is that they’re just too one-out and not really getting anywhere.
Harry Jones asks: Which other SANZAR team does Daniel Hourcade’s vintage of the Pumas most closely resemble, in style of play?
Tough question!
Hourcade says he admires the Aussie style, and it looks like he wants to play Cheika-ball; big ball carriers coming around the edges, quick changes in angles, and relentless attacking in hard-won space.
And the Pumas aren’t kicking at a Kiwi or Bok rate, so I’d say Hourcade’s squad is playing a form of Waratah Lite with a Red-ish scrum.
Brett: Ha, for the 2015 vintage, maybe the 2012 Wallabies? That said, the 2014 Pumas were doing their best to play like the All Blacks, in that they were they were hard at the breakdown, and if they didn’t have the ball, they had a crack at any slight glimpse of it in the ruck, and competed until they got it. When they did get it, they played a wonderfully expansive, but ad lib game – as if it was the last play of the match.
But since Harry cheated with his own question and expanded ‘SANZAR’ out to include the Super Rugby sides, the current Pumas remind me of the way the Brumbies and Bulls finished the season; a maul-led forwards game with the occasional reminder from the backs that they can do something if required.
Digger: My immediate thoughts are the Springboks, due to the obvious comparisons with a forward-dominated approach, or at least that perception; however, that would be a more likely comparison with teams in the late 2000s.
I simply do not see the same attacking intent with ball as compared to the other three so my answer is a simple copout of ‘no-one’.
Brett McKay asks: Has Nicolas Sanchez scrapped last year’s instinctive, incisive attacking play for a 2015 game built around niggle, penalty milking, and losing his feet in dubious contact?
This isn’t just about the Michael Hooper thing, and nor will I accept that Sanchez ‘got what was coming for him’ in that particular incident.
But throughout that game Sanchez seemed more intent on gamesmanship and that kind of carry-on than actually playing much rugby. He did seem to find the ground a lot in dubious contact.
I am perhaps guilty of being a bit populist with this, but when I watch Sanchez play in 2015 I see nothing like the free-flowing flyhalf that lit up the Rugby Championship in 2014.
Maybe the return of Juan Martin Hernandez beside him will make a difference, but at the moment I just want to slap Sanchez across the face and tell him to pull himself together, man!
Digger: I do not believe it is a style of choice, but may be a sign of frustration at performances to date. Perhaps changes around him have created a lack of cohesion and knocked his confidence while Hourcade looks at his options.
Hernandez will be a welcome addition to the side for the World Cup after his rest period and he, along with Joaquin Tucalet recapturing his best form, can bring out the best in Sanchez.
Assuming he plays against the Springboks, it will be interesting to see how he approaches their remaining two matches before the World Cup.
Harry: Test rugby is theatre, but a pantomime puppet show is overrated. There is no place in our code for diving. One of the defining features of rugby union is stoicism.
Another is respect for the game itself; and the hard men who went before. Nicolas Sanchez is a fine football player; his acting isn’t quite as convincing. Bryan Habana did it in the Heineken Cup and peer pressure forced him to apologise.
Sanchez should do the same; regardless of Hooper’s suspension. Not just because referees watch rugby on TV, too, but because a big reason we play rugby is that it’s not soccer.