Big mountain for Argentina to climb vs All Blacks - Stuff.co.nz
It was a polite way of saying they'd never heard of Colin Slade or Aaron Cruden.
Due to meet a Dan Carter-less All Blacks in next Sunday's Rugby World Cup quarterfinal at Eden Park, Argentine captain Felipe Contepomi said New Zealand would be just as formidable without their star first five-eighth.
"Personally I think that we'll analyse the All Blacks, not their players,'' Contepomi said when asked what he knew about Slade and Cruden.
"It's more about what they do as a team, rather than what they do as individual players. Their system puts them in positions where individuality can make the difference.
"It's more that their way of playing is greater or bigger than one player. We're talking about Dan Carter, the best in the world, but still I think the All Blacks have a lot to offer without him.''
It's hard to argue with that last point, given how the All Blacks and Pumas ended their respective pool campaigns yesterday.
While New Zealand made short work of Canada in Wellington, Argentina were flattered by their winning margin of 25-7 against Georgia.
Contepomi, and coach Santiago Phelan, acknowledged that. But, as the former also noted, "sometimes the result is more important than the performance''.
Argentina have a lot to do between now and Sunday if they are to have any hope of emulating their third-placed finish at the 2007 tournament. This team struggles to put any decent phases of play together, isn't the force of old in the set pieces and also lacks a decent goalkicker.
Contepomi kicked three of six yesterday, and Marcelo Bosch one from two, in a display that mirrored the ragged way Argentina had played as a whole.
But, having qualified out of pool B as runners-up to England, the skipper said his team would take a couple of days to recover physically and then begin the job of "looking deep inside of us and look at weaknesses and strengths and also analyse the All Blacks''.
Trying to better control the tempo of next Sunday's quarterfinal might be the best place to start. On the evidence of their last two matches, against Scotland and Georgia, Argentina have no hope of playing at the All Blacks' pace.
Their best hope is to slow the match to a crawl and cross their fingers Contepomi kicks a few goals.
Irish referee Alain Rolland awarded the Pumas 17 penalties yesterday, but so poor was Contepomi striking the ball that he often opted for scrums and lineouts instead.
Down 7-5 at halftime, second-half tries to Contepomi and Agustin Gosio saved Argentina from an even more humiliating defeat than France suffered the day before.
Argentina 25 (Juan Jose Imhoff, Felipe Contepomi, Agustin Gosio tries; Contepomi 2 pen, con; Marcelo Bosch con) Georgia 7 (Lasha Khamaladze try; Malkhaz Urjukashvili con). HT: 5-7.
- Stuff
03 Oct, 2011--
Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNGHqnp4CY15h7B0DbcL8F5teLhAxw&url=http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/rugby/5721069/Big-mountain-for-Argentina-to-climb-vs-All-Blacks
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