Argentina coach Michael Cheika wants discipline not magic from Pumas against Samoa

SAINT-ETIENNE – Argentina coach Michael Cheika said he was not looking for anything magical from his Pumas team when they try to get their Rugby World Cup campaign back on track against Samoa on Friday.

The Australian said the players had learnt a lot from their opening 27-10 loss to 14-man England in Marseille and had spent all week in training focusing on the basics.

“We know the type of game we want to play, we don’t want to change too much depending on the opponent,” he said after naming his team, which had three changes to the starting line-up, on Wednesday.

“We have to be disciplined in our organisation, in defence and attack. It may take 60, 70 minutes until the opportunity is there, but you have to take it when it comes.

“You don’t have to do something magical, it’s about playing our game disciplined and very aggressively.”

The experienced Matias Moroni comes into the midfield for Lucio Cinti, Guido Petti plays in the second row instead of the injured Tomas Lavanini and Eduardo Bello replaces Francisco Gomez Kodela at tighthead prop.

Cheika has also added another back to his bench in the shape of fly-half Nicolas Sanchez after going with a 6-2 split against England.

Sanchez will win his 112th cap if he gets on to the field on Friday as will 34-year-old Tomas Cubelli, who also adds experience to the bench as cover for starting scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou.

Pumas skipper Julian Montoya said the more experienced players were ready to embrace the pressure on the twice World Cup semi-finalists after their disappointing first outing.

“We know there will be pressure, we are training for this. It’s where we want to be. Nobody forces us to be here, we do it with a lot of passion, with a lot of love for the shirt and for what we represent,” he said.

“The older ones are there to absorb the pressure. Let the younger ones think about playing. We are ready to have a great game against Samoa.”

Samoa coach Seilala Mapusua, meanwhile, implored rugby’s governing bodies to change the global calendar.

The match against Argentina will be only Samoa’s third against a Tier-One nation in four years.

Since crashing out in the pool stage at the last World Cup in Japan, Samoa have played only 12 matches, less than a third of the number played by the elite Tier-One nations.

Half of those were against fellow Pacific Islanders Tonga and Fiji and only two, including their last World Cup warm-up – a narrow 17-13 defeat by world No. 1 Ireland – were against Tier-One nations.

“We’re expected to come to the pinnacle of our sport and compete and be competitive and this is on the back of two games against a Tier-One nation in the span of four years, and one of them being on the eve of Rugby World Cup,” said Mapusua.

“This model definitely needs to be looked at, especially from our perspective. We need more meaningful games and competitive games.” REUTERS, AFP