Argentina edge France with late try

Houps !!! This forum forgets to say that the French team wins the 2nd match : France 49 - Argentina 10... I can see that this paper like my country, isn't it ? Le bonjour et à la prochaine coupe du monde, les tricheurs.

Hello wre01 Nice to hear from you your. Definitely yes, all players who play in Europe will be available. Hernandez, Agulla, Imhoff, Fernandez Lobbe, Ayerza, Creevy, Rodriguez Gurruchaga, Camacho, Gonzalez Amorosino, etc., All of them are going to be there. In Argentina Rugby Championship, has awakened a passion just as it always was the Soccer. An Example 4 months ago, sold out all tickets for the game with the All Blacks in La Plata Buenos Aires, and I could just buy tickets a month ago. to go in August to Mendoza to see the Springboks, and in October to Rosario to see the Wallabies. Everyone in this country are excited at this "great opportunity", as is defined by Graham Henry, who is working as assistant to the coaching staff for the Pumas. If I understood correctly, you say you play rugby and you have been recently in Romania at the 2012 Nations Cup, congratulations. I have no information where is going to be play the next nation's cup, but if you say it is in Argentina, surely it is, and I'll be there to witness it. Best regards

Reading these comments brought to my attention (not for the first time) that my daughter's primary school, where my son will be attending next year too, doesn't have any arrangement for the kids to attend even the occasional rugby session (but they do AFL, soccer, tennis, basketball, netball, athletics and swimming, so they're already covering quite a bit). Deciding that if something was to be done to get the kids playing a bit of rugby I thought that I should put my money where my mouth is and look to get involved to do a bit of coaching myself. Apparently the first step to getting myself qualified to coach kids is to attend and complete a SmartRugby course, but looking on the ARU's website it transpires that these courses aren't held in Victoria, so no joy for me then. Then, a quick look at other states shows that these courses are hardly ever run at all. Very disappointing, especially when we've already discussed what the Russians are doing.

KPM I agree it is a real worry. and the reality is it is so simple too in a nation like Australia we are not a 3rd world nation. Even if only they put a team in every private school system in Australia that would be good enough as these kids would have resources. So more in Adleaide,mlebourne they do alittle bit but more, and perth, and Nth QLD, and tasmania we would be fine. ANd it would not even cost a cent as it would be done by teacher just added to the curriculum as sport is compulsory on satudrays for private schools and teaches have to participate if they want a job in the private school system it is part of there employment deal,. , You only need 1 decent coach at 1st 15 easy to find as many love rugby anyway and you only need 1 , and 1 mildy interested teacher at each age level 13-18 and your done. Took 5 minutes to do that. The high school i went to KPM did not even have soccer on its's curriculum in the late 1980's. By the time left about 10 years later in late 90's it was matching rugby for school participation so in reality, rugby probably per age group was losing 20% of quality players per age group to soccer yet we still could put up a good 1st 15 that was very competent and really punched above it's weight eg kinda like an Irleand or a wales currently small nations, . And we could do that with rugby in victoria,sth australia, and west australia , and tasmania. AFL would not die , but at the end of the day who cares if they do, if moor skids like rugby then that is good. Soccer when it invaded my ex school and was perfectly within it's rights had no concern abut brining rugby's popularity or participation numbers down, and rugby league doesn't care either if it is drawn into a code war with rugby or soccer, or afl. So what;s rugby's problem in this country. Well i think it is elitism and just a clueless giving in attitude. No new business models. Hopefully when JON departs in 2013,after i fear we get spanked convincingly by the British and Irish lions we will snap out of our deluded realites that our grass roots models KPM, and our commercial senior business models are out of date and only lead to 1 road failure, and mediocrity and the dreaded Tier 2 rugby status which for Australia's rugby history would be totally humiliating yet that;s where ei fear we are headed at end of 2023 world cup if we don't change in next 2 years.

Johnno it's amazing how simple Russia's idea is: put the game in every school. Why doesn't the ARU think of that? You could have a group of new rugby schools around a new franchise, Such as Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and quite quickly to build playing numbers and fan support. So simple it's amazing. Of course the ARU is too inert and ineffective to even contemplate such an idea. Soon indeed rugby in Australia could have real problems. Look at the under-20s for evidence already!

Throw in Brazil to KPM around say 2025 if they get developing too another massive nation.

KPM the russian government is aiming to put a high school 1st 15 in every high school in Russia. It is amazing we need that commitment in Australia if we are too stay a big rugby union power Think of what a small nations like Geogia has achieved in the last 10 years or Irleand,. Or what a big nation 60 million soccer loving, Italy has achieved in the last 15 years, it is scary what nations like USA , Russia can achieve. Russia has apporixmatly 140 million , USA 300 million, India and china approximately 1 billion, france approximately 65 million. So we need to get together Australian rugby , coz some big nations are getting there act together very fast. USA beat Georgia on the weekend in the USA in a test match there and play Italy this weekend June 23rd in Houston, already 12,000 tickets have been sold the stadium is a 20,000 seat stadium so good for USA. And the IRB world rugby trophy starts today in UTAH USA. Basically it is the 2nd division under 20 world cup, with the winner making the under 20 world cup next year. Already in 1 year india has jumped 1 division and is now 1 playoff match from jumping to divisions in asia, to be affectively division 2 asian comp 1 division behind the HSBC Asian nations. Give India another 10 years and they will climb even more rapidly. Australia needs to re develop it's business model for rugby or grass roots development or in 20 years USA/ Russia will be beating us all the time. I really fear for australian rugby KPM if we don't change especially around the 2023 or 2027 world cups.

Fernando Great to see your comment and I wish Argentina all the best as a new member of the southern hemisphere rugby family. Loved seeing all the European teams get beaten on the week end. Do you know whether Argentina's best players will be released from their European clubs for the 4 Nations? If so, do you know how they feel about playing all through the European summer? As an aise, I have just retruned from a rugby tour in Romania (hopefully next year it will be to Argentina) and it was brilliant to play against teams that have so little but love rugby so much. Let's hope Romania and Georgia aren't too far off playing in the 6 nations.

Excellent comment Colin, I was in the game and it was exactly what happened, France beat us in the set pieces, scrum and line out. The good thing about Argentina is that had many ups, and only two players (Farias Contepomi and Hair), came from the team that played in the last World Cup. If you don´t know in agreement with the European clubs, players who will contest the Rugby Championship, should not be present in this 3 test matches, one or another. There is one aspect that concerns us Argentinians, too, is that not first quality props emerging , something that has always characterized our Nation Rugby. We are not finding it easy to replace players as Mauro Reggiardo, Federico Mendez, Mario Ledesma, Martin Scelzo Patrick Grau. We only have one Hooker at International level (Agustin Creevy) and two good standard prop´s on Marcos Ayerza and Luis Figallo, the 6 new prop´s played in these 2 Test Matches, facing Italy and France were far away from the expectations we had in them . Instead we see that the Wallabies now have too many high-level prop´s, 3hookers as Polota Nau, Moore, Faingaa,and Robinson, Kepu, Alexander, Sliper, Ma'afu, Palmer and others like Ben Daley (I like very much this player .) Anyway, looking forward the Argentina Rugby has grown tremendously over the past 8 years, and with the advent of professionalism has greatly improved the possibilities. No doubt that this first year in the 4 Nations will be very hard to us, but such is our style we are going to fight until the end. Best Regards

HP it's funny that they are not mentioned more when there is talk of SANZAR expanding it's arms, as with Canada as Johnno mentioned. Canada has a long tradition, quite good playing numbers, 34 million population and the 10th largest population in the world and so would be well worth bringing into the SANZAR orbit. Argentina, U.S, Japan, Canada and Russia are the five markets to targets over the next decade.

Not a bad argument KPM, it's worth remembering that Russia's recent dominance of tennis stemmed from hefty government investment in the sport since the 1990s, thanks in no small part to Boris Yeltsin's love of the game. If they were to do the same to rugby they could become a powerful player on the international stage in the future.

Remember Russia Johnno although they are not that developed with their game. It's too cold in the Russian winter for them to join the Six Nations or Heineken Cup so they would have to play with the Southern Hemisphere teams. Apparently rugby is being invested in in schools on a large scale by the Russian government.

This new rugby championship is the best thing to happen to australian rugby since the tri nations cam into play and super rugby started. And maybe say 2016 we can get another big tv market team with big population in Japan/USA/Canada if they get up to speed. Pacific islands teams good but sadly too small populations to be commercially viable.

Thanks Colin. I watched the game highlights and noted the two Argentinian trys were intercepts against the run of play, but well taken. I liked the French try (cross field kick to the winger who swatted it back inside to Picamoles who crossed for the try). The highlights suggested the French were perhaps dominating but not taking their chances. Hard to tell, hence I appreciate your comments. Anyway, well done to Argentina for winning with a second-string team! I'll try and watch the next game.

I sort of watched it. I had it on a stream on the laptop while watching TV, so I drifted in and out really. But from what I saw, France looked the more dangerous with ball-in-hand but mistakes cost them, while there were some decent Argentian players on show - depth has always been an issue for them, but it seems they are bulding in that area. France's scrum demolished Argentina's, lineout's were pretty even but France probably lost the game by not taking their numerous chances.

I'd have liked to have watched the game. Did anyone here actually watch it? Both teams fielded a bunch of new players but especially Argentina, and both team lists had an experimental look about them. France has struggled with Argentina's game for a while. I don't know what conclusions we can draw from this for the 4N.

Yep Johhno, very worried bout the argies, the play the exact sort of forward based game that unsettles the wallabies.

Ok thanks Ben.

France included Szarzewski, Pape, Maestri, Picamoles, Parra, Trinh-Duc, Fritz, Fofana and Huget. They're all matchday 22, with Ouedraogo probably being in that list too. Thanks for the link.

A poster in another forum shared this link. Highlights from the game: http://espndeportes.espn.go.com/videohub/video/clipDeportes?id=1546888&categoryid=834528&cc=7586 Apparently neither France nor Argentina used first line players.