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Opinion

What can we expect from the Jaguares in 2020?

Roar Guru
26th January, 2020
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Roar Guru
26th January, 2020
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Both the geographical location of Argentina and the lack of professional rugby in the region make it very difficult for the UAR to organise preparatory matches of the level required for Super Rugby and the Jaguares’ clash with a Georgia XV at least provides a contest.

Coach Gonzalo Quesada, like in most Super Rugby teams, will aim to replace the exodus of the main figures and the retirement of other emblematic players. The replacements will be making their first steps in professional rugby with all that entails. Many of them are coming from the local amateur tournaments and only have international experience in the under-20s World Cup.

As expected in each post-World Cup year, Super Rugby teams have to readjust and experiment by giving rookie players minutes in the competition and in many cases with new coaching staff. At least the Jaguares kept their coaches with the exception of the physical trainer for 2020.

The goal for the 2020 season has to be playoffs but the main objective of UAR for these next two years is to put Los Pumas higher in the rankings to avoid being in the pool of death in the next World Cup.

This goal may conflict with the objectives of Jaguares since to climb in the rankings, Los Pumas must have fresh players for the international windows and Rugby Championship. That imposes a greater rotation of players to give them both mental and physical rest so that they arrive at those instances in the best possible way and avoid what happened at the World Cup in Japan. In that instance, the players arrived with a rugby overdose after the final of Super Rugby.

Agustin Creevy

(Photo by Gabriel Rossi/Getty Images)

The main problem of having only one professional team in Argentina is that players who do not play, or the so-called substitutes, do not have competition or minutes on the field since professional players cannot play for amateur teams that participate in local tournaments and therefore have no games to play.

With the new professional competition that begins this year in South America, players who do not play for the Jaguares will be able to do so for the Ceibos, the Argentine team in the tournament, and the Jaguares can call on them as required. We will have players between the two teams that play under a similar game system and therefore the adaptation will be almost immediate. All players did the preparation together and to this day we do not know many of the names that will be on one team or the other.

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I would not be surprised if the majority of players who go on tour to South Africa do not go on the trip through Australia, New Zealand and Japan. This spreads the wear and tear that extensive tours entail, using the largest possible number of players.

To the the trial game itself, it could be seen that the team tried new things in offence, were tough in defence and lethal with recovered balls. The three at the back are very awake and fast to build counterattacks when the ball was recovered. The lineout went well but the scrum problems worsened with the departure of two props, Santiago García Botta and Enrique Pieretto, plus the second rower Tomas Lavanini.

It is not clear who will replace Pablo Matera, but Agustin Creevy and Julian Montoya are in contention.

Also in these two games against Georgia, several players could be seen occupying unnatural positions and the coaches are looking for multi-functional players both in the backs and in the forwards, besides the front row.

The captaincy will fall again to Jeronimo de La Fuente for the second consecutive year.

Very young players that impressed me that you may not have seen are Santiago Chocobares, Tomas Albornoz, and Bautista Pedemonte.

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This is the probable XV to face the Lions in the season opener: Tetaz Chaparro, Agustin Creevy, Santiago Medrano, Guido Petti, Lucas Paulos (Marcos Kremer), Francisco Gorrissen, Tomas Lezana, Marcos Kremer (Javier Ortega Desio), Tomas Cubelli, Joaquin Diaz Bonilla, Matias Orlando, Santiago Carreras (Sebastian Cancelliere), Bautista Delguy, Emiliano Boffelli.

There are injuries to Matias Alemanno (three weeks) and Jeronimo de la Fuente (two weeks).

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