Jaguares make the case for defence in Super Rugby

In 1865, 150 Welsh Protestant non-Conformists bade farewell to their homeland, waved their loved ones goodbye, and left the port of Liverpool for the other side of the world.

They were headed for the Chubut valley in Patagonia, under the stewardship of a Welsh Congregationalist Minister, Michael Daniel Jones.

Ironically, their purpose was to re-establish their sense of Welshness in another country, and preserve the customs and language which they saw being eroded by pervasive English influence in Wales.

The settlement was baptised Y Wladfa and it flourished culturally and economically. After the inevitable (and difficult) phase of assimilation by local influences in the first half of the 20th Century, a new era of cooperation sparked by the centenary celebrations in 1965 began.

The Argentine government promoted a policy of cultural diversity, and the descendants of those original Welsh settlers are now Argentine citizens – vigorously so – while remembering their roots.

The red-brick, non-Conformist chapels still stand proudly in the spare landscape, shoulder to shoulder with 1200 new Welsh-language learners under the auspices of the Welsh Language Project.

A local tea parlour ‘Ty Cymraeg‘ (the Welsh house) now has an easy footnote underneath the sign: Casa Galesa – case de te. The ‘druids’ at the local eisteddfodau now wear blue ponchos instead of the traditional white robes of their forebears – and when Welsh is spoken, it is with a distinctive Spanish lilt.

Identity changes as it is introduced into a new environment, and this has also been the case with the Argentine national team when it ‘moved abroad’ and resettled itself as Los Jaguares in Super Rugby.

Joaquin Tuculet of the Jaguares. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

As with the Welsh settlers in Patagonia, there have been considerable teething problems. Welsh rugby tourists in 1999 and 2004 noted the arid hardness, even hostility of the country outside Buenos Aires. When the Welsh team trotted out to train in Tucuman, the maggot-ridden cadaver of a dead dog had to be removed from the pitch first. No scrummaging machines could be found, and requests for them were met locally with a shrug of the shoulders.

A barbecue was not the polite back-garden affair it was back in the UK. It was incendiary, whole sides of a beef carcass roasted in walls of heat overwhelming enough to make the eyes water; ribs hacked off and served as they were – blackened, smoking and delicious.

There was a hardness about the rugby on the field too. Players like ‘Nacho’ Fernandez Lobbe, Mauricio Reggiardo, Rolando Martin and Martin Durand took no prisoners, and the sheer resilience of the Argentinian rugby body – its ability to absorb legitimate physical punishment and dish it out in equal measure – knew little bounds.

Some of that toughness has been lost in Super Rugby translation, as Los Jaguares have struggled to come to terms with the requirements of a new culture. They have been too eager to embrace the all-singing, all-dancing style of constant ball movement and they have suffered because of it. Something innately Argentinian has been lost in translation.

Now there are signs that the marketing blinkers are falling away, and the Jaguares’ game is beginning to drink once again from its ancestral roots. That return can be summarized in one word – defence – and it may in time give hope to the Australian franchises still struggling to come to grips with their New Zealand nightmare.

In Rounds 1-8 of Super Rugby 2018, the Jaguares conceded an average of 33 points per game. On their recent Australasian tour, they played four matches and shipped an average of 18.5 points, and only two tries per game. They won all four matches.

Likewise, there has been a noticeable change of attitude in the method of playing teams from the New Zealand conference:

Offload attempts have dropped from an average of nine to 3.5 per game, turnovers reduced from 19 to 12.5. Some of the meanness has at last returned to the Argentine game.

The British and Irish Lions tour in June 2017 established that in order to beat New Zealand teams, you have to restrict them to no more than 20-25 points per game. Australian Super Rugby sides have been unable to approach within smelling distance of this target in 2018, their six losses thus far coming at an average of over 38.

If Australia is to resurrect its fortunes, it has to start with a new attitude to defence. None of the franchises are capable of winning a high-scoring shoot-out with any of their Kiwi counterparts so, like Los Jaguares, they need to break the cultural stranglehold, stop trying to play New Zealand teams at their own game, and lay the foundations of success in their play without the ball.

Although the Chiefs were suffering from a number of significant injuries up front in their weekend match against Los Jaguares, they were still able to field a high-class backline featuring Damian McKenzie and Charlie Ngatai as twin playmakers. They could not have expected to have to wait until the 81st minute of the game to score their one and only try.

Los Jaguares began the game as they meant to go on, with two terrific goal-line stands inside the first ten minutes of the match. They set out their stall to punish the Chiefs’ forward ball-carriers close to the ruck:

There is an extra defender in behind the ruck for the pick and go, and all of the first three defenders are in the ‘three-point stance’ favoured by defensive linemen in American football, preparing to get lower than their opponents in the tackle.

This meant that when the Chiefs went wide via their excellent back-line, the odds tended to be stacked against them:

When the ball reached dangerous Anton Lienert-Brown, two Jaguares defenders were ready and waiting to ‘bracket’ him in the 13 channel. On the next phase, we can see why the defence won its battle:

The Jags’ D was fully set and ready to fire off the line, but only the Chiefs’ near pod was prepared for the next phase. Players on the far side of the field were still tracking back, or in the process of moving into position closer to the ball across the width of it.

Uncompromising gang-tackles by two or three defenders close to the goal-line, followed by accurate defence when the ball went wider, was a consistent feature of the first half:

In a perfect execution of the triangle defence structure, #11 Emiliano Boffelli pushed all the way out on to McKenzie, with #13 Matias Orlando folding in behind him to make an outstanding tackle on Ngatai:

It was the pressure created by the defence which led to the Jaguares’ first score of the game, in the 26th minute:

This occurred only two phases after a Chiefs’ line-break down the left side of the field, but already the defensive team was back ‘in shape’ when Karl Tu’inukuafe fumbled the ball. There were no rash offloads when the Jaguares ran the turnover back either, they simply kept the ball until a clear opportunity presented itself.

Orlando posted some ordinary raw stats (four of six tackles completed) but in reality he was key to his side’s work-rate and sustained aggression.

He first thumped Lienert-Brown in the tackle, then reloaded back into the line, before hitting McKenzie and forcing a fumble on the next phase.

Even those crucial minutes that so often belong to Kiwi sides, on either side of halftime, were on this occasion owned by the Jags. The Chiefs were forced to turn and regroup in an attack, going backwards on far too many phases for their own liking:

Summary
Los Jaguares are on their way, finally, to rediscovering the source of their own unique contribution to Super Rugby, after a season-and-a-half of wondering what was expected of them by the culture of the competition.

They have cut back on the miracle offloads and the unforced turnovers, and they have adopted a much more hard-nosed attitude to defence – one which suits the Argentine rugby personality much better.

As a result, they have beaten four teams in a row away from home, and two of those wins have been against sides from New Zealand. Despite the injury situations at the Blues and the Chiefs, holding both of those attacks below the 20-point threshold is no mean achievement.

What a franchise from Australia would do to buy just one of those wins!

But the Aussies will not make the purchase unless they can meet the defensive gold standard to beat teams from New Zealand – a feat they managed, incidentally, in the third Bledisloe game of 2017.

Australian teams across the board must demonstrate the same unyielding defensive quality of their cross-code cousins, or the occasional dream will never become a consistent reality. Until then, they will just be whistling down the wind.