The Jaguars were an absolute boon to SR and to Australian franchises. They improved the level of competition, and showed a different style, especially in 2019 (because they had an interesting combination of traditional Puma ruggedness with a more expansive type of play).

Will they go back to play SR? Who knows? At a minimum, I doubt that Argentina will be able to pry away its stars playing in Europe (or in case of Matera, Japan), so there would be growing pains for a Jaguars 2.0 franchise.

Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure they’d be competitive and would probably be amongst the leaders of the competition in 3, 4 years time, to the benefit of all involved.

I’m in no position to opine about the future of Australian Rugby Union. I can, however, say that as a former Jaguars super fan, I always had the feeling that the Jags were more of a nuisance than an opportunity, much less a thrill to the Australian public.

I mention that because the grand majority of what I would read on Australian rugby pages was that SR was busted, how Australia could do better playing somewhere else, while discounting the chance they had to play with an exciting franchise which at their best, was almost level with the mighty Crusaders.

Until teleportation is invented, geography is what it is, but if you get an opportunity to play top-notch competition, which surely is something Australian SR franchises needed (and which inevitably produced better quality candidates for the Wallabies), you should be stoked to get it.

De Jager was not picked to play on the 2023 Boks RWC side.

The ABs played fantastically last Saturday. But it is only one Test, where things went very well for them (and SA was caught almost napping at the start of their Test).

The fact of the matter is that the big guns of RWC Groups A and B (especially those of Group B) will have two or three do-or-die Tests before even reaching the Semis.

Its certainly possible that the survivors will be playing Rugby at such a high level that they will proceed to crush their opposition in the Semis and Final. But there is a part of me that believes that the winner of the WC will come from the other side of the draw, if only by virtue of the materially lesser exertion by the Semi Finalists from Groups C and D.

Nice to see you guys again, writing about the RCh.

Quickie comment: I thought that the “unknown unkowns” phrased was actually uttered by U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.

Doesn’t happen much, but I agree 100% with Nobes this week.

I can understand European media being somewhat surprised by the Pumas’ beating England. They are pretty insular, and don’t particularly follow The Rugby Championship.
But fans from South Africa, Australia and NZ have been seeing pretty much this whole bunch of Argentinean players since 2012 (both as a national side and as part of the much-lamented SR Jaguars). The Pumas are not favorites to win the RWC or anything, but they are certainly a side that can beat anybody in the sport on a good day.
The real question for the Pumas is whether they have the mental and physical wherewithal to sweep all their Tests during this November window. They got the toughest Test (on paper) out of the way, and they should have a decent chance of beating both Wales and Scotland.
THAT would be a true achievement.

I think that this AB side is the most inconsistent side I’ve seen in 15 years.
When they are on, they can beat anybody (and at times, whip them).
When they are not on, they can be beaten by most Tier sides, as seen by Argentina’s win in NZ this year.
The real question is why there is such a low floor and such a high ceiling. There is clearly talent on the ABs, but it is not talent that day in, day out, overwhelms its foes.

Seeing the end of the Wallabies – ABs Test, I understand Rassie Erasmus a lot better than I did last year.

SLAR was designed to be an intermediate step between amateur competition and SR.

Again, this is all pre-Pandemic planning, but the idea was to expose young players to a higher level of competition than amateur leagues, but not as high as SR.

Other than that, we have a rather different reading of the facts.

Your answer actually went in a different direction than my original point, but in regards the Pumas, it’s very misleading to measure their results during the 2016-2019 period in the way that you do.

Argentina went into SR in 2016, and in order to make the Jaguars a going concern, they had to ring fence the Pumas so that no European players would be selected (by 2018, they were summoning two or three players from Europe, to deal with areas of need).

Meanwhile, the Jaguars turned out to be a very, very good system for generating new talent. The pandemic killed the Jaguars as a going concern, but the fact of the matter is that Argentina was producing bushels of young talent, to the point that after the 2019 RWC, a number of Jaguar players went to Europe.

That trickle turned into a flood after the pandemic, including a number of young players that hadn’t debuted with the Jags (e.g., Thomas Gallo) or had barely played with the Jags (e.g., Juan Mallía or Santiago Carreras).

In a non-pandemic world, I maintain that the Jaguars would be perennial SR finalists AND Argentina would have had a ton of talent also playing in Europe.

Right now, Argentina is going through a bit of a “demographic bonus” in re: its players. The real question is what will happen in 5 to 10 years time, when Argentina’s pipeline talent production line is wholly contingent on European clubs.

Seems to me that the Northern Hemisphere has benefited from an influx of talent due to the pandemic.

I don’t want overstate the impact of the Jags, but basically, the whole side (plus some young players which were waiting in the wings to play for the Jags) ended up playing in Europe.

If you add 30 to 40 international level players, that’s bound to improve the level of play.

Add to that the fact that a bunch of Saffas went to Europe AND that the former Saffa SR franchises are playing in the Celtic League, and it’s plain to see what’s happened.

The real question should be, why isn’t the North running away with the sport at an international level?

I have my opinions about this, some of which are tied to the fact that club / franchise rugby is not the same as Test rugby, but that’s the burning question that I would love to see addressed.

I don’t think there’s a person in the world who would disagree with you, in regards any sport across the world.

As to overthinking things, what I think doesn’t ultimately matter.

But I would hope Cheika is not UNDER thinking this Test. However, our opinions may differ.

Argentina’s defense during the Christchurch Test famously passed the eye test and the statistical test.

If your point is that Cheika should demand that his side play better defense, well of course he should ask them to play better defense. If nothing else, Cheika’s harangues seem to be having an effect on the Puma players.

If your point, however, is that Cheika should plan for and/or expect the Pumas to play better defense than they did in Christchurch (*), then I hope Cheika is not foolish enough to expect lightning to strike twice and has plans B, C, D and E at the ready.

(*) With the proviso that they can and should defend their maul defense.

Bertt,

I assume you are familiar with the concept of marginal gains and their cost.

When you make 192 tackles, with an effective tackle rate of 96% and you only allow one non-maul try, the cost of a marginal gain to be made on defense against the All Blacks is sky high (with the exception of defending the ABs maul, as mentioned in my original post, since that has given the Pumas trouble during this whole RCh).

So as above, the Pumas almost certainly have to make gains in other areas to beat the ABs again, because it stands to reason that there will be some level of regression to the mean on defense. Fortunately, the Pumas scrum was bad (especially when the ABs were feeding the ball), their line-out was inconsistent and they could have been more aggressive in phase play and in the aerial game.

I did read your full sentence, and that’s why I partially agree and partially disagree with it.

It’s perfectly fine to have different opinions (none of this is personal).

I partially disagree with Nobes, in that I don’t think Argentina can expect to play better on defense than how they did in Christchurch (with one proviso: maul defense, where they clearly were wanting for that first AB try).

Since I don’t think it’s realistic for the Pumas to play better on defense (and since I have to believe the ABs will be smarter, kick some grubbers and bombs, to test the Puma backline), they’ll have to make it up in the setpieces and in phase play.

I’ve rewatched that Test a couple of times, and there’s a wonderful phase sequence from the Pumas early in the 2nd half (around minute 46). The Pumas were passing the ball wonderfully, and eventually the sequence ended at around phase 12 with the Pumas kicking for a penalty.

There’s still some Jaguar in (most) of these Pumas. While they still have to defend like mad, I think the key will be to have some modicum of success in attacking the ABs.

Let’s hope Cheika can pull another rabbit out of his proverbial hat.

If I may, I commented on a number of different threads after the Pumas’ victory against the Wallabies about how that outcome had a lot to with the Pumas and not so much with the Wallabies.

This victory shows that the Pumas are a damn fine side, and that 48-17 victory was no mirage (in point of fact, it can be argued that the 1st Test loss by the Pumas may have been the mirage, as they collapsed around minute 50, while leading by 9 points).

In any case, it’s been a pretty entertaining RCh, and anybody can win it. That’s the best you can hope foe.

That’s an interesting way of putting it, and you could be right.
But arguably, the Wallabies were pressuring Argentina during the 1st half of the 2nd Test, and this time, the Pumas kept their composure and blew the Wallabies out.
I realize that this is an Australian site, and that’s fine, but let me do another thought experiment.
Scoring tries on the last play of the game is not a particularly common occurrence, but it happened in both Argentina – Australia Tests. Let’s throw out both final tries. That would have meant that the Wallabies would have won the 1st Test by 8 points and the Pumas won the 2nd Test by 24 points.
Those results seem a lot more reasonable to me, especially considering that the Pumas were ahead 26 – 17, 54 minutes into the 1st Test.
(It doesn’t stand to reason that the Pumas should fold like a bad hand of cards every time out. It seems like Cheika and the Puma leaders read the riot act after the 1st Test, and perhaps they have managed to find a backbone that was lacking in that first Test. I mean, most of the Pumas are former Jaguars, and they know from personal experience that Super Rugby games would often be decided in the final 10, 15 minutes of the game. Seeing as how Wallaby players are Super Rugby players, and have had similar experiences, one would hope Puma players remembered the lessons they learned prior to the pandemic).

Fair enough.

But by that same rationale, the Wallabies were not 15 points better than the Pumas in that 1st Test.

Agreed that the ABs and the Boks will be the truer test of the 2022 Pumas.

Still, they clearly outplayed the Wallabies in 3 out of 4 halves. And they did so with some flair, so as above, I think it’s only fair to acknowledge that the rival did a good job (versus a “the sky always falling” mentality.).

I don’t “want” anything from you.

I realize that Australia had some unforced errors (it did), the Pumas had a number of lucky bounces go their way in the 2nd Test (they did) and the refereeing was just much better in the 2nd Test (it was). However, let’s look at the first 40 minutes of the 1st Argentina – Australia Test.

Is it so inconceivable that the Pumas could have pulled it together for a full 80 minutes?

Let me toss out a hypothetical.

What if the Pumas are actually a heck of a talented squad, which had underperformed during the Ledesma years, and which is now jelling into form?

Take that a step farther: what if the Pumas SHOULD have won the first Test, but a collective brain cramp, bad refereeing and a lack of leadership kept them from doing so?

Seems to me that these possibilities are not being countenanced by Australian voices, even after the world class performance of the Pumas last Saturday.

How in the world does somebody write an article about taking on the mucky mucks of World Rugby and fail to mention Gus Pichot’s doomed, but valiant attempt at winning the Presidency therein?