I think that, appealing as it is, in the final analysis your idea ends up in some sort of dilusion of SR. B/c, for the toppers of the weakest conferences (South America and Pacific Islands), while very easy to win against them, it would also automatically bring lacklustre to the champions; whose fanbase and Unions would ultimately voice the “need” to get rid of the weakest conferences. Also, imagine going to play rugby at 4000 mts above sea level in Bolivia.

I am all for a reorganisation of rugby calendars (NH & SH), so the different competitions can be a little shorter; and then perhaps we could squeeze in some very short comp like the one you’re saying. Still, SR champs would complain anyway of having to play worse teams (South America and Pacific Islands) for the sake of some TV station.

Danny, we’re still very far from that (I’m an Argie). From memory, all the South Americans teams except Argentina, are in Tier 3, 4 or worst. The only one coming in Tier 3 is Uruguay. B/c of this huge difference in level, Argentina has been and will be lining up the C team (Argentina XV). In the near future, we’ll perhaps see a 2nd Argie team with a mix from non-Buenos Aires clubs, and the added gift of +/- 5 Argie players per team to play for Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, and Colombia (that makes 20 Argies playing for 5 different countries). So we can all see that Argentina is doing everything she can (with her very limited means, part due to the traditional shambolic state of the economy, and partly due to the fierce traditional resistance from the Argie amateur clubs to ever get any near whatever reeks of professionalism) to launch the future South American conference (that will have to wait a few years still though). At the moment, it’s just the very young South American Championship, with the national sides. A South American conference (with clubs and/or franchises) is still many years behind reaching the level of the Pacific Islands, let alone the SR15; but that will come in due time (15-20 years?). A very good website chokeful of hot news in English is the official ARC page, there everyone is welcome to have a feeling of how things are currently evolving and what are the ideas being floated.

In the meantime, we do have the Americas Rugby Championship (ARC), lining up the national sides of the USA, Canada, Argentina, and some others well below the aforementioned big three. Only last year, if I remember well, the USA Eagles managed to grab the ARC for the 1st time in their history, while all the previous ARCs had been won by Argentina.

Hey Rugby Guru Carlos the Argie,

“And “Colonel” (surprised you picked a military rank given Argentina’s sad history)” —-> You just read too much into things, Carlos. It’s just a famous metro station (“Colonel Fabien”), where the national HQ of the French Communist Parties are located. It just happens to be close to my neighborhood, and I simply picked that name as a pseudonym several years ago. It could have been any other name, but this one looked best suited, and less pretentious than picking Victor Hugo (another metro station), or Charles de Gaulle (same), or any other metro station name. Suppose someone would wonder if Carlos the Argie has any connections to Carlos the Jackal, the famous terrorist of the 70’s and 80’s, just b/c “Carlos” + Southamerican? That’d be very silly of him, wouldn’t it?

I’ve known well that restaurant for years. In its first years, I used to chat with the original Chilean owner. Today, there’s no Argentinian working there, they’re from other Latin American countries or from France. Sometimes they’ve made me think the meat I was served was not Argentinean. Unfortunately, the restaurant’s quality has gone down since a long time. Much better to go to Unico, or La Locandiera, or one of the Clásicos.

Please be coherent and consistent with yourself.

1) If you “actually admire” people’s (like Nobes) change of mind/heart, then don’t criticize nor accuse them/him for doing so. You discredit yourself by asking from others the consistency and coherency you gladly make do without.
2) Same with your “I don’t call myself a guru” —> Well, how come as intelligent as you are you still fail to see that the same applies with Nobes? He never called himself a guru, but you’ve been consistently insisting in calling him so, just b/c his avatar, exactly like yours, says he’s reached the guru status. You discredit yourself by being so puerile.
3) Similarly, if you don’t like what he writes, please don’t read it, it’s very simple too.
4) You’re not just “only asking people to be consistent”, you’re actually trying to extort some kind of recognition from them. You discredit yourself by being so puerile.
5) I suppose you must be very butthurt that Nobes didn’t write something like “my sudden and unexpected change of mind on this particular issue comes from the myriad of magnificently eye-opening posts from our beloved & respected Rugby Guru Carlos the Argie, who first and foremost wrote all of this 10 years ago and has very patiently been teaching us all everything about rugby. Due credit to him where credit is due! If only 1% of the UAR people could be as smart as he is, our Pumas would have been systematically trashing the ABs for +70 since 10 years ago at least“. —> Well, consider it written now, and let’s close the subject once and forever.

Hey dear Rugby Guru Carlos the Argie, I was merely summing it all up for Harry Jones.

It’s very childish (and tiresome) of you to continuously brag about your “I said it first!”.

What’s the use of it? You announcing the Gospel? We owe you anything? Some copyrights, maybe? Please let me know to which PayPal account I can deposit my 2c for them, if that makes you happy.

Can’t you see how puerile your attitude of constant need for attention is? What do you or we know if someone ever said those very same things before you did? Do you seriously think you were the very first one ever to say those things? Could you please back that up with some actual data? I doubt you could. Do you seriously think that just b/c you claim that you were the first one to have written something then it necessarily follows that nobody else gets to say anything along the same lines, you shut us all up once and forever b/c your word is final? B/c that’s what you’re implying in your bragging comments.

Your contributions are very good, but seriously, you ruin them every single time you brag about them. You should be rejoiced that more and more people agree with “your” (c) general views. Instead, you’re coming across as bitter & quarrelsome that nobody gives a damn about who said what in the first place. So, you wrote your opinions faster than the next guy. And so what? You know, not necessarily every sperm who swims faster than the rest and gets to fecundate the egg makes anybody smarter than the others. Living abroad should have taught you some humility, but apparently that lesson went missing. Please grow up and give us a break from your bragging rights. They discredit your informed opinions; and that’s curious, b/c at the same time you’re looking for credit, aren’t you?

G’day Harry Jones, here’s a website (in English) that provides much food for thought:

Home

As you’ll have noticed, we South Americans (especially the Italian-Spanish kind, i.e. we the Argies) are very vocal. Most of us rugby fans are quite civilised, but now and then someone like Carlos may lose his marbles. Let’s hope it’s just temporary, sure his parents taught him good manners.

As for your interest in nuances, here are a few basic facts:

1) Within the UAR, the URBA (Buenos Aires Rugby Union) is the most troublesome, rarely siding along with the others. (I’m from BsAs myself, but my loyalty goes to my country, not my city or province); the URBA being the Union with most players, clubs, and fan base its influence over the rest is “yuge”,

2) There’s a great deal of opacity within the UAR concerning the money management. Given the chronic, blatant corruption in Argentinian everyday life, most of rugby fans have very strong suspicions that many poor-performance Pumas/Jaguares players are routinely listed as starters b/c of their commercial ties to their respective private commercial sponsors. We want the UAR to come out perfectly clear about all that,

3) There’s a very strong opposition within the UAR, the many different provincial Unions, and the clubs themselves, to implement a Professional Rugby Championship in Argentina. Part it stems from a proud tradition in continuing the amateur spirit when the British brought the game to our lands 150 years ago; but in today’s world, that anachronism is highly detrimental to the quality of the game the Pumas/Jaguares have been bringing on lately; hence the logical need to implement a professional championship,

4) Due to intricate networks of corruption and clientelism, we rugby fans are seeing HCs not up to the par heading the Pumas/Jaguares. In a professional world, repeated poor play performances and poor results would bring an immediate termination of those HCs’ contracts. Some among us insist in that to happen. Raúl Pérez’s contract with the Jaguares was mercifully just brought to an end; we need Daniel Hourcade (the Pumas HC) to go as well, and bring in some Anglo HC (SA, NZ, AUS) with an Anglo approach and a deep knowledge of SR. Until a few weeks ago, both HCs (Pumas and Jaguares) were repeating: “we don’t care at all about the results, we are in SR to learn”, wtf?,

5) The current structure and development of rugby in Argentina, although seeing a very increased interest in the game since 2007’s brilliant results (with more kids joining clubs, and more people attending matches if played outside BsAs) calls for an extraordinary generosity of everyone involved (amateurs clubs, their respective provincial Unions, and the UAR) to bring about the professional era (totally compatible with keeping the amateur clubs though). In turn, this means also either sending away part of our players and coaches to attend trainings in the SH, or bringing in to Argentina SH coaches and players to help us develop our rugby, so that in both cases Argentinian rugby can increase the quality of the opposition we can offer the SH teams and make us worth of staying in the SR,

6) Along with the above, we need to do whatever necessary to increase the rugby level of the American zone, so that eventually there will be an Inter-American conference in SR with 5-6 teams which, in turn, may justify the rest of the SH teams to sending their A teams (and not their B teams as so far) to our time zone. This needs time (which is short) and money (which is very short too, except for the USA and CAN, the level of which so far does not make them quite fit into SR yet, hopefully that may change in 4-5 years’ time).

You guys in Oz seem much better off than us regarding the state of rugby =). Let’s see how we square against each other on Sept. 16 and 30! (RCH).

G’day Carlos, I’m an Argie too, based in France. I also write in LNOL, with the same pseudonym.

You wrote [quote]: “What bothers me tremendously, is the local Roarer expert (guru) that constantly criticizes Argentine rugby politics and financing when he writes in Spanish, in the local blogs, but keeps mum when writing here.” [End of quote].

To start off, me too I am one of the few ones who regularly criticize the UAR & co. in LNOL. To make myself clear: like others who criticize the UAR, I’m not against the UAR per se, but against its blind politics towards development of rugby in general. It comes from a position of love, passion, and respect for rugby. I truly believe that’s Nobes and others’ position likewise. We genuinely want to help the UAR to nurture a much better rugby development in Argentina, and for that to truly happen, one of the many current hurdles to be jumped over is providing total transparency about the money deals & distribution among the UAR, the different local Rugby Unions, and the players themselves. The current opacity speaks volumes about the not at all so innocent after all “amateur” (ha-ha!) spirit at the UAR. “Please, hide that money I would not rather see; close my fist tight and make sure no coin falls out while I keep on pontificating about “amateur” values.” We at the LNOL are fiercely against poor-performance players whom however always make it to the final list as starters because, we argue, they have privileged commercial ties with their respective private sponsors, so much so that, we argue, it’s really the private sponsors who actually routinely tell the Head Coach which players plays first and foremost, regardless of any poor (and, sometimes, indeed pitiful) past performances. We’ve labelled them “the QBE frats”.

Nobes did write an article about the general state of rugby in Argentina and the shortcomings of the UAR (stemming from a shortsighted vision, partly due to internal politics, e.g., the permanent troubles between the URBA and some, if not all, the rest of the (provincial) Rugby Unions in Argentina, quite blatant regarding the schedules of their respective championships, the general Argentinian championship, and the Pumas/Jaguares broadcasting schedules). In that article, he did mention the points you yourself mentioned in your post about the financing, etc.

For your benefit, the article’s title is “Is rugby in Argentina following the right path?” and was posted on June 5, 2017, barely a month and a half ago. Link: http://www.theroar.com.au/2017/06/05/rugby-argentina-following-right-path/

Now, you Carlos the Argie need to factor in that, however vocal Nobes can be here in The Roar, he, like other well-meaning Argies, can’t be too much vocal in his critiques because, mind you, like in other internet-accessible media, here at The Roar are some blokes who actually work within and for the Sanzaar, and it would be a very bad idea to give those blokes too strong an argument leading them to strengthen their positions about possibly cutting off the Argie team when 2020 will come (and the end of the current 5-year contract between the Sanzaar and the UAR). He must tread carefully a very fine line between a well-meaning, and much needed, healthful critique, and what can be taken as a destructive opposition to whatever the UAR may think or do.

So, in my view, Nobes was very clear and honest in his article, the details of which can be read in his Spanish comments in the LNOL rugby section. Some hints to his views are also available in English here at The Roar, when he comments of the Jaguares’ performances (or rather, lack of). How could that be a “forked tongue” for you? And by the way, speaking of a “forked tongue”, why didn’t you state his name (Nobes) for real, instead of merely making an allusion? C’mon, there can’t be anything bad about it. come to think of it, most of blokes here at The Roar (including the ladies) are fully grown-up adults, used to exchange banter in a joyful Aussie way. Some of them even have grandchildren.

Also, you need to take in consideration that the audience of The Roar being 90% Aussie, they have very little to no interest at all in the internal disputes in the UAR and the poor state of rugby in Argentina. They have been very worried about the state of Union Rugby in Australia in the last years and don’t have with Argentina such a close vicinity as with New Zealand so as to have an interest in what their neighbours may be doing and how it would eventually impact themselves. It’s a welcome distracting window in some other country’s rugby problems, but nothing that may affect Aussie rugby (fortunately for them!). But no need at all for them for us to spell in the littlest details whatever may be wrong with the state of rugby in Argentina, they just need the outlines; and the rest, well, they know perfectly well where those outlines may lead to, because they’ve suffered the same things in the past, or their Kiwis & Saffas rugby cousins. What the Aussies do care about Argentinian rugby is (A) our ability to offer them a decent opposition, which may justify their paying their match tickets or they pay-per-view matches (something I am rather very sceptical about, given the Jags poor performances) and (B) the TV schedules for matches played actually in Argentina. If there’s eventually a (C), I’m all ears about it.

Voilà, that’s my point. Please understand I’m not here to pull you by the ears, but to help you make you realize (when you will read his article about the path being followed by the Argentinian rugby; which I presume you either haven’t so far or had forgotten about; otherwise I can’t explain myself why your remarks) that you’ve wrongly accused Nobes of something he did write about, very consistent with his own position in LNOL.

[Oops, I’ve just seen a comment from you, Carlos the Argie, on Nobes’ article, dated June 6, 2017 at 4:46 am. You’re basically agreeing with Nobes, there in your comment. Will you please explain to me why exactly you accuse Nobes of being a “forked tongue”? And about any other major disagreement? Muchas gracias de antemano].

Thank you, Nobrain, this here is another good and well-written article you made!

It’s very, very positive that inmates serving their time may, thanks to rugby values, be in a much better position to avoid reincidence. 5% is a significant very low rate! I wonder how if similar programs exist in countries like Australia and New Zealand, with a much richer rugby history than Argentina? Could anybody say a word about that? Hopefully bot the Argentinean Homeland Dept. and the Ministry of Sports or equivalent will (eventually) implement a nation-wide program. As a team sport, I think rugby is much better suited than football to teach collective values of responsibility, co-working/team spirit, and trust. Perhaps the same may be obtained from other team sports like basketball and volleyball? I don’t dare to mention hockey since the fact of having a wooden stick in their hands may tempt some inmates to beat up another inmate, or a guard.

I wish to honour and thank the 7 English rugby players who paid a visit to the Argentinean inmates learning rugby. Visiting a prison is no ordinary feature, the moreover so in a foreign country, of which you don’t understand the language, and which country was at war against yours 35 years before. Those Englishmen showed great sportsmanship, human concern, and valour.

Well, the article is so pretty good in itself that it’s going to be hard to add anything significant to it. Congratulations, Nobrain! Very crystal clear. Wonder if other Unions have gone through similar predicaments in their past?

One or two among the crowd here argued that may be throwing in 3 Ncers and 2 Saffers may work very well towards making the Argies more professional. Well, I’ll have to disagree, for it’d be like ruining the prospects of those Ncers and Saffers, making them lower their skills as they would somehow get polluted by some of the slack & wrongs undermining Argie rugby.

Also, for the same money and a much better ROI, the UAR would be far better off hiring a SH coach (& his staff). Imho, it’s far better to have a foreign coach to teach how to do things properly (b/c he’s the boss and no kidding w/him) than bringing in foreign players who, despite their best efforts, would lack of course the authority of a coach and therefore their very good examples as SH players may not be taken very seriously by the whole of the Argie players.

While on paper the idea of joining the 3-Nations and later on the SR was a very good one, the stubbornness and the blindness of the UAR is making all of that a perfect waste. The current HC is not up to the task, some players have encroached the system and despite their playing badly they can’t be sacked, and the UAR itself is not helping get new players to eventually feed the Pumas b/c the Argentina XV does not get interesting matches, so they don’t play that often (and are even starting to replicate poor games from Jags!).

I feel so ashamed when I think of how angry and pissed of many SA and Oz rugby fans may feel, about having some of their teams cut off from SR while having to allow an underperforming and deceiving Jags side to subsist b/c of expansion and giving a chance to the promising teams of yesterday. Apparently, we in Argentina have decided to stay put right in the middle of the ford, instead of fully crossing it. What a way of wasting an otherwise very promising rugby side!

Hi y’all, Jags fan here. I’m satisfied with the final result. The Sharks did a bit more of the job that the Jags were unable to do; a scrappy victory for them but a win is win. I’m happy the Jags got the defensive bonus point; that may be very important in a few weeks. I could only start watching the game from the minute 36 on (was rushing back home from the pub, where they were not showing the game); so I’ll have to watch (inflict myself?) the game again in YT and see whether or not Neutral is right on his complaining about the ref being a bit hard on the Jags in the first half at scrum time; but in any case the referee in the 2nd half was very good & serious, no interruptions, no hesitations, calling the right calls. Yes, Nico Sánchez had another erratic performance that made him look back in 2016, but he stills have some credits with me for the future games. I do have a complaint about one of my favourite players, Joaquín Tuculet; specifically about his Street Fighting air kick against a Sharks player. That was both very dangerous for the Sharks player and very stupid of Tuculet, he could have gotten a red card for that, or at least a yellow one. How irresponsable of him!

If any Saffa is reading this, I wish to congratulate him sincerely for the Sharks victory and hope their team brings in again their best players for the return game in BsAs. At this point in time, I’m pretty confident the Jags will win that one, and it would be much better to do it against a full Sharks side than to their B side; and I don’t think they will make that mistake with both teams being practically neck and neck at the table.

Hi again, Hello;

You’re right about the forums! Guys like me who know just the basics find them very instructive for our rugby education and very addictive indeed. In one Argie forum one bloke mentioned a detail that really stroke me out as me being light-years from his level of expertise: he said he saw a player “with his elbows not parallele to the ground” (I think he was referring to a scrum)… how TH could he’ve noticed it when the tv only shows it for like 1-2 seconds??

I agree about Creevy: it was the very first time I’ve seen him talk more than 5 words to a referee. Must have been taking English lessons! I personally don’t like him at all: a hothead, always getting us in trouble and who’s always giving me the impression he neither understands nor can talk in English. Also, in the French forums (I live in France) he’s got a reputation like being terribly bad at line-outs, and I tend to believe them.

The discussion amongst us Argies is about our team being rather more of a “Pumaguares” (Pumas + Jaguares) and thus having a lil’ better chance than clubs; however they also say this Pumaguares wouldn’t last much in the European championship. That adds further to my confussion. We are all speculating on how the incoming tour to SA may go; surely a loss against Lions, a possible but not necessarily easy win against the Bulls, and a very dangerous match against the Sharks. Then we will know where we’re standing.

Can’t say much about the referee: true it did cost you a couple of tries; but how fair or unfair your YCs were, I just wish I had the knowledge to give an informed opinion. Perhaps they were unfair after all, a penalty would have been the normal call? I think the referee was +/- balanced overall (some mistakes but not thaaaat many, and mistakes against both teams) and I find than in all of his calls against the Jags he was right (compared to Jacko Pepper from SA in a previous game against the Lions, I could tell Mr. Pepper was indeed somehow being harder on the Jags than on the Lions).

I read a couple of articles by Wayne Smith in The Australian with a bit more details about what went wrong in the Reds’ performance. He alleges an “apalling display of skills” but the sake of my life I didn’t notice at all the Reds failing their passes or making silly mistakes; so it’s clearly something that shows my lack of rugby education. He does say the 2xYCs were “farcical” (and perhaps there’s a point there). What buggers me is that the rugby press in NZ & SA don’t say anything about it, and since they’re “neutral” on this game then I can’t know how accurate Mr Smith is on that. I’m waiting to read more about it in the English & the Irish press (nothing so far, just a very succint summary in the Daily Mail).

While it indeed must hurt, I hope the Reds will put themselves back together again. Maybe a wakeup call?

Of the 2 Aussie times still to be played, I reckon the Brumbies seem way more dangerous than the Force, which is one of the possible Aussie candidates to being culled if SR goes from 18 to 15 teams, right? Perhaps they’ll beat us squarely in BsAs.

Rugby greetings and all the best for you & your family with that hurricane hitting QLD right now!

Pleasure exchanging with you.

Hi Hello.

From fan to fan, I feel your pain, I don’t rejoice or anything.

We agree, the referee made questionable calls both ways. You say “a lot” and I say “some”, just for the reason that I don’t know very well the rules themselves, so I can’t really know whether or not the calls were right or wrong. I’d better shut up then.

You argue the back and forth with the TMO killed the flow. That happened a couple of times only, hardly all along the match.

As the rugby ignorant that I am, all I can say is this: Aussies teams are intrinsically superior to Argie teams b/c you’ve been playing top level rugby, right from the start, for +100 years, and against other top level sides. Your superiority shows up clearly in the stats of Oz beating Argentina consistently, despite our best efforts. We have improved a lot, but are still so far from being a threat to you guys. Our occasional wins here & there hasn’t changed that.

And that, my friend, in my book says it takes away completely your right to complain about the referee and the TMO.

Perhaps, the Jaguares players are just way better than the Reds. Why & how, I couldn’t tell. It seemed to me both teams had the same talent, force & skills, either player by player or as a whole team.

It’s very weird, recalling from our horrible campaign in Y2016, that in the Argie forums/fora we were all cursing our own players and/or the coach and/or the staff and/or the UAR; very few amongst us were going about “the referee robbed us on this, and on that”. It did exist, of course, but most of our very angry complaints went to such player having butter-hands, or such and such being too much of a failure at lineout, or another being too bad for playing rugby with Jaguares, and so on.

I lack the knowledge necessary to point out at the mistakes or shortcomings from your team; but blaming it all, or most of it, on the referee and/or the TMO is… just not worth of the quality & tradition of excellence of the Australian rugby.

However wrong the referee and/or the TMO may have been, they didn’t make the Reds lose.

Even if they hadn’t made any mistakes and not “killed the flow”, the Reds would still have lost. Surely by a shorter margin.

I don’t know how good or bad are the Reds within Oz (will read on that later). From my ignorance, perhaps this year the Reds are really in bad shape. But their name is not coming up in the corridor talks about which Aussie team would be culled if Sanzaar goes ahead with shrinking SR from 18 to 15, so they can’t be that bad, can they?

However, just to have different povs and inform myself better, I’m going to read what the press has to say about this match. So far I’ve read the Argie and the Saffa press, nobody (except fans) point out to either the referee and/or the TMO influencing the game any the slightest. I’m going to read the French, the English, the Irish, the Australian and the Kiwi press. Perhaps you’ll be vindicated, I don’t know. I’m going to inform myself better and come back here with what I’ll have found out. If you’re willing to point me at any journo article on this game, I’d be very thankful.

See ya round, in the meantime have a nice day or afternoon! Cheers.

Nobrain, reading the complaints posted by many fans here, one cannot but think that maybe the Jaguares should have played the whole game with 12 men only, so the Reds could’ve had a fair chance ;-p

It ain’t fair nor game at all to a very good team like the Reds that some of their supporters (and of course that as a fan I understand their pain) whine on the referee. The referee made some mistakes against both teams, but overall his judgment was good.

Hi (again) Cynical Play (I replied to your question in “Five talking points from SR round 5”.

As a matter of fact (please don’t believe and check it out by yourself) Argentina has been playing an American rugby competition. It’s called the Americas Rugby Championship (in went y another name in the old days). B/c the Argie side (the Pumas) is too strong for our rivals-of-the day, we made up a team of youngsters (who may or may not feed either the Jaguares or the Pumas later) called Argentina XV. They play against the USA Eagles and the other national, “A” sides of Canada, Uruguay, Chile, Brazil, and Paraguay.

Apologies for bringing in a bit more of competition/challenge for you guys. I used to think you Anglo Saxons stock loved competition & challenges, and specially trashing us poor, clumsy Latinos and other Diegos. Your kiwi cousins seem, strangely enough, to take great pleasure at beating us soundly & thoroughly. Perhaps there’s a lesson there to be taken?

Hmmm, just for the banter: those Argies who do know the ins & outs fo the game, who are the real experts (not me, alas) are saying in our forums/fora (sorry, I forgot to introduce myself: just another annoying armchair rugby Argie fan) that the referee “completely tipped the field in favour of the Aussies” in the second half.

Now, nobody disputes the fact that, as newcomers, we Argies have still *a lot* to learn from you blokes.

If after +100 years of competing against the crème de la crème of kiwi and saffa rugby sides (clubs and national sides) you Aussies can’t beat a somehow decent, but still however struggling Argie side made up with a shoestring, and moreover you moan & whine over the referee…

… then sorry, but you can’t honestly blame it all on the referee. You’d rather blame yourselves.

Oh, c’mon Tigranes!

Just for the banter: although I ain’t any or much knowledgeable at all about rugby (pls pardon my ignorance), those Argies who do know it thoroughly (former players & trainers, etc.) do point out in our rugby forums/fora that the Reds were consistently throwing their balls very twistedly/skewedly whenever they got a line out.

So the Aussies,at least on those ones, were actually favoured by the referee.

May I remind you that it’s just for us, the minnows & newcomers, the “right” to whine and scream out loud “the referee robbed us”?

Just to be fair, those blokes in our forums/fora also recognize without any reserve that, considering how many penalties our Jaguares side was giving to your side, a YC would have been the normal prize to pay, and that if we escaped it narrowly, one can only wonder why the referee didn’t choose to.

Peace, man; just to throw in my 2 cents. Don’t take me seriously. Nobrain is all alone here.

Hi there, Cynical Play @8:10pm. Argie fan here, hehe. You ask why we don’t play in our own time zone.

The reason is very simple: our sides (either the Pumas, or the Jaguares, or Argentina XV, or the Pampas, or the so-called Pumaguares (Pumas and Jaguares), or the so-called Pumpas (Pumas and Pampas) are too much strong for either the USA, or Canada, or Uruguay, or Brazil, or Chile or Paraguay.

Seriously. No bragging. Real fact. Please check it out.

So, we only fit in Southern Hemisphere rugby (personally, I’d have preferred playing the Northern Hemisphere national and club sides; but seriously, who cares about me? Right, nobody. Sigh.)

So yes, time zones are a headache for everyone, you, them kiwis and saffas, and ourselves when we travel to your respective time zones. No questioning it. It’s real.

However, this will sound like good music to your ears (hopefully): the UAR is working with the other fnational unions in our time zone (the Americas) so we can all work out one or several tournaments/championships for both our respective national sides and our respective rugby clubs.

This won’t happen overnight, it will take a few years (we already play the Americas Rugby Championship, but that’s just for the national sides). So, maybe in 5 to 10 years, we will return to our natural time zone and let you deal with yours.

In the meantime, we Argie fans thank y’all fair dinkums for this “yuge” honour & opportunities you give us of improving our rugby through playing with you. Wishing we could reciprocate somehow.

See ya round!

Er, as for the “B” team of Lions, that’d be the case if it was their whole “B” team.

As it happens, it was more a 60% “A” Lions team + 40% “B” team.

And, let’s not forget, the Jags too had to use some of their “B” players.

Hello; still, 1 YC against the usual 2 ones, I call that a 50% improvement.

Looking forward to the game against the Reds and the 3 games in SA; then we’ll have a much better informed idea of the quality of this Y2017 Jaguares team. Hopefully, they will keep on improving.

Hi y’all, Jaguares supporter here.

I’d be happy if the Jaguares had 30% chance of topping over.

Reality is 20% is more likely. Indeed, 15% would be the most realistic. I support my team, but believing in BS makes me no good.

All I’m praying for is for the Jaguares not to be trashed (+40). A good licking (+30) seems inevitable, but they are strong enough to avoid being trashed. Will they be so? I have my doubts. Just want them to be focused & disciplined and hold on & hang in for as long as they can.

Hoping the bleeding is for no more than +24 for the Stormers. +12 or less (hahaha, so much for BS!) and I promise to sing “And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda” at the pub.

Hi y’all fair dinkums from Down Under & other rugby visitors from the rest of the world. I’m an armchair rugby fan, here to support Argentina and exchange good-hearted banter.

Maybe in 2017 the Jaguares will show a better game, but I don’t dare to hope too much for it. They’re still learning to adapt to SR and some of them are way too eager to show they’d deserve a spot with Los Pumas.

There’s also the travel factor. Although as an armchair rugby fan I don’t buy too much of it, nevertheless I, as everybody else, have to give at least some credit to several complaints from previous years and other teams that travelling does indeed takes some toll. What I mean is that I don’t quite get how come, after say 14 hours in a plane, when you spend a few days or a week in the host country, travel tiredness may be an excuse; but they still serve it from time to time. I’m quite ignorant -that’s the right word- on the matter, here to learn some more.

Hopefully, in a few years’ time, Sanzaar will implement some sort of alternation btw host nations/conferences, so on a given year the Jaguares will be having more matches at home – that may help, and render the SR/conferences more exciting b/c of eventually the Jaguares seriously challenging the established order. The same goes for any future 2nd or 3rd Argie franchise that eventually makes it to SR.

Voilà, that’s all for now. Happy to be here and ¡Vamos, Jaguares! 😉