England great accuses Felipe Contepomi of ‘a load of b**locks’ over Tom Curry and points out what ‘he should be more worried about’
Juan Cruz Mallia makes his kick before England's Tom Curry collides with him and, inset, Argentina head coach Felipe Contepomi.
England great Ben Youngs has slammed Felipe Contepomi for his post-match attack on Tom Curry, claiming the Argentina coach should be more worried about other aspects of Argentina’s 23-27 loss.
Steve Borthwick’s side held on to win by four points at Allianz Stadium Twickenham to secure their 11th successive Test match win, but the success was blighted by how the Pumas furiously reacted to their loss.
Head coach Contepomi was angered by the late Curry tackle that left Juan Cruz Mallia with a torn ACL due to the awkward way he landed following the collision.
It resulted in tempers getting frayed after full-time, and the confrontation then reignited in the tunnel when Contepomi refused Curry access to the Argentina dressing room. This resulted in the English back-rower allegedly pushing the Pumas head coach and telling him to “f*** off”.
Bust-up
The alleged tunnel bust-up was revealed by Contepomi at his post-match media briefing, but the story didn’t wash with Youngs, the record England men’s caps holder, who stepped away from the Test arena following his country’s win over the Pumas in the bronze medal match at Rugby World Cup 2023.
Speaking with Dan Cole, his fellow retired England centurion, on the latest edition of their For The Love Of Rugby podcast, Youngs rubbished what Contepomi had to say and instead backed Curry, his former teammate, whom he played with in the 2019 Rugby World Cup final in Japan.
The ex-scrum-half claimed that instead of dwelling on the Curry incident, which only warranted a penalty against England from where the kicked ball landed, Contepomi should be blaming his own coaching for Argentina not getting the last-gasp win.
Here is how Youngs’ conversation with Cole unfolded:
Youngs: First of all, the tackle was not late. He was committed. He didn’t target a lower limb or anything like that.
Cole: If it was late, it wasn’t dirty.
Youngs: It wasn’t dirty. It was late, you’re right, but it wasn’t dirty. It was upright. It was very similar to the hit he actually did in round one against Australia on the kick chase where the ball was in the air, he just went and smashed the 10. It’s just inside pressure.
He’s doing what every back-rower does, which is constantly hound people and chase the ball to try and put you under pressure. He is committed; he is trying to put him under pressure. As he kicks it, he hits him. It’s marginal. I’ll tell you what, they spent a lot of time hitting Fordy [George Ford].
In multi-phase attack, he was getting hit. England often run this shape where George gets it, he goes lateral, they have one under, they have one short and it goes out the back. Every time George travelled laterally, every time he distributed, boom, he was hit, trying to take him out on the floor. It was no different between that and what Curry did.
I don’t see any difference except for, unfortunately, and it’s not nice to see, a player has got injured. We don’t want that, but he wasn’t intentional, reckless or anything like that. It was just a bad incident.
Cole: His intentions weren’t to injure the bloke. It was to put pressure on him and let him know he was there. Similar to what you say about Fordy, every time he went to the line, he just got hit late. It’s what you do, you try and let players know that you are there. It’s not illegal, it’s not dirty, it’s just you’re letting them know that if they ever do go to the line, they are going to get whacked. That’s what you do, and Curry is unfortunate the guy got injured.
It’s a bit sour grapes, to be honest. We know Curry, he is a great guy. After the game he was going up to the Argentinian bench to say hi, and if you go up to someone to say hi to a coach and they are going ‘go away, go away’, then you are going to be a bit like, ‘f*** off, I just want to talk to him’. And then the fact that he is like, ‘he pushed me’.
We don’t know the context of it all but I am guessing Curry didn’t chase after and push him; the bloke probably came at Curry, so that is probably why he pushed him away. You don’t know but if I put myself in that situation, that is what I would think I would do. And Curry is a great guy; he is a competitor. In the back of his mind, he is probably a bit upset that he has hurt somebody. Therefore, he’s not going in there, oh I’ve hurt him, yeah whatever lads.
He is concerned and when you go to try and find out about him and you are told to p*** off, it gets your back up. It seems much ado about nothing. If I am Felipe Contepomi, I’m probably annoyed at losing but again, that is one focal point of your anger when actually it should be focused on losing the lineout at the end of the game or other situations during the game, and also why you use your bench up so you are down to 14 for the final plays of the game.
That kind of stuff rather than what Curry did. Because ultimately these things unfortunately in rugby happen and it could have happened when he went up for a high ball and landed on his leg and hurt. It’s one of those things. It wasn’t intentional, it wasn’t a dirty shot, it happens.
Argentina confirm full extent of Juan Cruz Mallia injury following ‘reckless’ Tom Curry tackle
Youngs: It happens. No one has come on; he is annoyed about it. I don’t get the whole bullying thing. The whole game of rugby is basically built on bullying each other because you have got to get momentum, you have got to win collisions, you have basically got to beat up the opposition and like pound them to surrender.
What do you think South Africa did at the scrum against Ireland? They bullied them. They bullied them the whole game. Scrum, maul, breakdown. That is what the game is built on so I don’t get all that and, as you say, I agree, we know Tom, he is a hell of a player, he is into everything, that’s what makes him great. He caught someone. It’s really unlucky the guy has got injured.
There is no malice, there is no intention and I just think, to be honest, what Felipe Contepomi has come out with is a load of b**locks. He should be more worried about the fact that last play of the game, they had a genuine shot to put England under pressure. I’m not saying they would have scored, but they would have put them under pressure and they didn’t take the opportunity.
Cole: I do think back to when we played them in the third place play-off at the World Cup and remember after the game there was a couple of their guys were really upset that they had lost and I sometimes wonder if it’s just that English-Argentinian rivalry and almost like they probably went into this week thinking England have rotated their team, not taking them seriously so they use it as motivation to get fired up.
You can see it was a passionate game and at the end, they really thought they were going to win and they didn’t and it’s just an outburst in that regard.
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