A tribute to the blue wall of Argentina

After South Africa’s decision to withdraw from this year’s Rugby Championship, we all expected the international rugby season in the southern hemisphere to be a rather disappointing affair.

The biggest fear was that Argentina would be embarrassingly unprepared. Without having played a single game since their disappointing campaign at the last World Cup — and with the majority of their players without having any game time since the suspension of Super Rugby — that fear was justified.

The prospect of playing four Test matches in a row against the All Blacks and the Wallabies would have been daunting for any nation under any conditions.

It should have been terrifying for the Pumas. Against all odds, however, they ended up having their best ever showing in the tournament. How did they do it?

Argentina’s lock Guido Petti Pagadizaval passes. (Photo: Ben Stansall/AFP via Getty Images)

They didn’t do it by exhibiting any of the attacking flair that has characterised their play in recent years. They decided to build a blue wall instead.

This blue wall stood strong against wave after wave of black and yellow attempts to erode it. It did come down for 40 minutes of the 320 minutes they played.

Understandably, trailing with the All Blacks in the second half of their third match, they started taking greater risks with the purpose of securing at least a bonus point loss.

That single point would had put them in the unthinkable position to lift the trophy a week later. When this was already beyond their reach, they played for pride—as any rugby fan would have expected them to do.

The final score was predictable: an embarrassing 38-0 loss. But this should only lead us to appreciate the difference made by the blue wall.

The Pumas started their campaign with one of the most incredible upsets in international rugby by beating the All Blacks for the first time. However, few expected them to be able to replicate a performance highlighted by a single handling error in the entire match.

That was an extremely low-probability event; something not worth pursing in the training pitch. What the Pumas would have hoped to replicate was their success in building the foundations of their blue wall. These foundations demanded an elusive right mix of ferocity and discipline.

They required to stand close to each other covering almost the entire width of the pitch. They required not to commit more than a single player to the breakdown and to get back quickly on their feet. They required to stand tall and hold up the attacking player every time was feasible to do so.

The blue wall was in its full, breath-taking display in the first 15 minutes of the Pumas’ last game against the Wallabies. Wave after wave of attacks were repelled in a spectacular fashion.

Wallabies players where not only held up in their place until the referee asked for their release (a rather demoralising situation for an attacking player to be in); they were also often carried backwards a couple of yards.

The beauty of a well coordinated attacking move is undisputed. But that sort of defensive display against a top rugby nation deserves our full admiration as well.

Even the most ardent Pumas’ fan would have thought that the defensive effort shown in the first 60 minutes of their first match against the All Blacks was not going to last until the horn. The Pumas were going to tire and fade. But they didn’t.

The Wallabies have a massive task on their hands to win the Tri Nations. (Photo by Cameron Spencer/Getty Images)

And a week later, the Pumas came from behind to tie their match against the Wallabies. The Wallabies could have won two weeks later the closing match of the tournament if not for a late missed penalty. But even then, the blue wall was still standing firm.

The Pumas only allowed a single try against a team that had an extra week to rest and after playing four test-matches in a row themselves.

In that final game, the Pumas made 133 tackles against the 43 made by the Wallabies. They also secured ten turnovers against the five secured by the Wallabies. Those numbers illustrate the 70 per cent possession enjoyed by the Wallabies more than anything else. But all such possession yielded zero clean line breaks and 15 defenders beaten for the Wallabies.

Relative to their possession, the Pumas did significantly better in attack with their 13 defenders beaten and their three clean breaks. The Pumas’ historic game against the All Blacks shows a similar picture.

The Pumas made a remarkable 152 tackles, missing 12, and allowing two clean breaks. The All Blacks, while making 102 tackles, missed 16 and allowed four clean breaks.

Nobody has been a greater contributor to the construction of the blue wall than the immense Marcos Kremer. With 72 tackles in four games, he tackled 26 more times than Michael Hooper.

That’s an average of over 18 tackles per game. Julián Montoya, Matías Alemanno, Facundo Isa, Francisco Gómez Kodela, Pablo Matera and Guido Petti also feature among the top ten tacklers of the competition. And the last three players each missed a game.

For their final game, the Wallabies were fully aware of the enormous challenged posed by the blue wall. They had plenty of time to prepare a new conquering strategy as well. But this made no difference. The problems the Pumas’ camp had to face made no difference either.

The entire team were first reprimanded by a nation for not paying a proper tribute to Maradona. They apologised by posting a video.

But in a country highly plagued by social and political divisions, three players were held accountable for what they tweeted almost a decade ago.

The UAR acted quickly in taking a public stance on the matter. The players, however, were equally quick in offering their own unqualified apologies.

At the end, Matera and Petti, two of the most influential Pumas’ players, were not part of the team.

Was this Twitter saga a galvaniser for the Pumas’ last showing of their now famous blue wall? Or was this the mere culmination of a disciplined approach that was conceived out of the need to practice in hotels’ meeting rooms while observing their quarantine?

Did the lack of game time ended up contributing to the Pumas best ever showing in the competition?

What we know for sure is that we should not expect the Pumas, at least in the short term, to forget what the blue wall has done for them.

We should also expect that many teams will try to follow the Pumas’ blueprint; which, in all fairness, was displayed to everybody by England in their semi-final match of the last World Cup. But credit must go to the Pumas for fully realising their potential.

Time will tell what this mean for the future of attacking rugby. What promised to be a disappointment tournament might ended up turning into a defining rugby moment. For all that, we must pay tribute to the blue wall.