Wallabies to face the Pumas and the passion of their fans

This weekend brings great opportunity for the Wallabies. No longer favourites and with an extraordinary injury toll, they travel to a venue none of them have played in before to face a rising opposition.

The stadium in Rosario will be a true test of character for the Wallabies and it needs to be viewed as the opportunity it is. This is a chance for them to display their pride in their jersey, their group commitment to the cause and to test themselves in extremely trying circumstances.

Hopefully the team is becoming tighter knit as they face these hurdles. Getting together with your mates, backs to the wall and facing tough challenges is one of the things that drives you as a rugby player.

You do all the work you can to be the best you can and hope to dominate other teams but the sweetest victories are the ones against the odds.

Victory as favourites brings a quiet satisfaction in a job well done, victory against the odds brings an elation and pride that is hard to beat. Hard fought victories are the ones that live in the memory longest.

Andrew Blades looms as a critical figure in the Wallabies camp this week, the forwards suffered on the weekend and will need to perform more strongly in this match.

The Sydney Morning Herald talked to Blades and one quote from him stood out.

”What we have been stressing this week is the pride Argentina have about playing at home. They don’t get to have home Tests that often, and so these internationals take on extra importance, which is shown by how passionate the crowd becomes. They get really involved in the game, and that can affect a visiting team.”

He is absolutely correct about the passion of the crowd, but I don’t agree that it stems from the scarcity of home internationals.

In April this year I went on my club’s end of season tour and we played games in Buenos Aires and in Mendoza. We took a team predominantly made up of first and second XV players along with an over-35’s team.

In Buenos Aires, the Regatas Bella Vista Club hosted us and put out their third or fourth XV against our top side. It was a tough game and, as I was very hungover, I was glad to be left on the reserve bench.

Later in the day I took the field in our veterans’ game and to everyone’s amusement but my own, I was on hands and knees regurgitating what seemed like half the annual stock take of the Palermo bar scene before half time. But I digress.

The lads from RBVC hosted us to a marvellous assado, the famous Argentinean barbeque, and afterwards we were privileged to watch the RBVC first XV take on the Hurling Club.

The standard of rugby was excellent, a long way from Super Rugby but to my eye superior to Shute Shield. The crowd however was extraordinary. Here were two club teams playing a standard league match and the away fans had come in a small but especially passionate group.

I’m a poor estimator of a crowd but suspect there were a couple of thousand in attendance. There were only a couple of hundred supporting the away team but the noise was incredible.

Passionate sections on both sides had drums out and were jumping and singing to cheer their team on. The volume from these groups was immense. It was also quite destructive, as the wooden stands that had been set up for the away team disintegrated under the jumping of these fans and they relocated to the next stand each time this occurred.

Later, a couple of the guys on the rugby tour went off-piste and watched Boca Juniors play Tigre in football. In that club game, one of the guys started feeling seasick as the 49,000 capacity concrete stadium was swaying as the supporters jumped, drummed and sang.

My point is that it isn’t the rarity of matches that makes the Argentine supporters so passionate, it is in their very nature to support their teams in this manner.

The Wallabies have to know this crowd support is coming and embrace the challenge it will bring. Given the disarray of the team, I am hopeful rather than expectant of victory for the Wallabies.

What I do expect to see is a performance of passion that I can be proud of win or lose.