Argentina: Determined to keep improving
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Argentina captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe said the team's goal is to keep improving and make their country proud following Saturday's 21-5 defeat to New Zealand.
The All Blacks struggled to victory over a gallant Argentina outfit in Wellington to remain unbeaten in the Rugby Championship despite another error-filled performance.
Argentina, with little possession but a well-organised defence, were still in with a chance until the 66th minute when New Zealand scored the first of their two tries.
Before wings Julian Savea and Cory Jane crossed for tries five minutes apart in the closing burst, the All Blacks only led 9-5 with three Aaron Cruden penalties against a try from Rodrigo Roncero.
The All Blacks now have three wins from three outings while Argentina have two losses and a draw but have shown they are not far off the pace in their first year in the southern hemisphere competition.
"I wouldn't say it has been easy," Lobbe said when asked whether they had adapted to regular competition against top quality opposition more easily than the Italians.
"Everyone from the coach, the union, the players, we have done a lot of work to be here.
"We know the level of the opposition in these six games (of the championship) so we prepared according to that.
"We are happy with that but we want to keep on improving.
"Our goal is to match these three teams because we want to get better and make everyone proud of this Argentinian team."
The South Americans now turn their attention to Australia this weekend on the Gold Coast.
"This game gave us confidence because of the way the players gave 100 percent and that is very important for us," said coach Santiago Phelan.
"We are looking forward to Australia ...(but) every game is different.
"We have to keep on improving because we are playing the best teams in the world and we have to keep working to have a good game."
Comments
kid_diablo says...
to be fair rugby doesn't seem to be as big in italy so they don't produce many good players there, in fact they're best players have been argentine: dominguez, Parisse, Castrogiovanni. ( imagine if Castrogiovanni and Parisse had played for argentina instead, they'd have beaten the boks that day for sure )
Posted 09:59 10th September 2012
KiwiLad says...
If the Argies keep learning at this rate, we will all be learning from them..
Posted 09:52 10th September 2012