Loose Pass: Argentina’s revival under Felipe Contepomi, the ‘ludicrous’ Tom Curry decision and Stuart Hogg under the microscope
Argentina are enjoying a revival under new head coach Felipe Contepomi.
This week we will mostly be concerning ourselves with Argentina’s revival in the Rugby Championship, head injury protocols and Hogg-hunting…
Contepomi leads Pumas on in his image
Watching Argentina tear South Africa’s world-class defence apart during those 20 remarkable first-half minutes in Santiago – having been shredded themselves during the prior 10 – it was difficult not to recall the playing days of their new coach.
An enigmatic player capable of some remarkable mis-judgments but also some unforgettable moments of skill (contrast his man-of-the-match performance when Leinster stunned Toulouse in 2006 with once landing a last-minute drop goal in the mistaken belief that it would tie a game), Felipe Contepomi has revived the Pumas since last year’s World Cup, bringing back a little more of the derring-do that marked so many of his own games as a player and loosening the squad’s mentality.
He’s re-balanced the squad too, keeping a few gnarly old veterans up front but giving youth and breathlessness a fling in the back-line, imbuing it with a similar sort of balance to the squad he himself played in when Argentina stormed to third place at the 2007 World Cup.
It doesn’t always work; witness the recent heavy defeat to New Zealand which backed up a stunning victory against the same team a week earlier. But when it does, it is so good that you can forgive mistakes or one-off slack performances as clear stepping stones towards what might be a team that can fully compete for the World Cup in 2027.
A huge Test awaits in Nelspruit (a strange place to play the decider of the Rugby Championship, notwithstanding that the fixture list was created well in advance), not least with Rassie Erasmus sure to unrotate his most decorated and fired-up Springboks for the final push. It’s a stepping-stone game for Contepomi’s Pumas however, who have a clear look of direction for the first time in a while.
What’s the point of the protocols?
Two clips from the weekend juxtaposed gave a handy signal as to just how far we still have to go before the rugby head contact/head injury situation is clear and clean.
In the green corner: the yellow card handed out to Kurt-Lee Arendse for having the temerity to allow a forward-charging Pumas player to thunder into his shoulder head-first.
In the blue corner, the ludicrous decision to allow Tom Curry back onto the field despite his clearly being fully unconscious for a few seconds after making a low tackle onto the hip of a forward-charging Harlequins player.
Here’s the problem: had Arendse stooped into the tackle as Curry did, he would have placed himself in far more danger of suffering a similar head knock to Curry. As it happened however, both he and his opponent were just fine after the incident. But he got yellow-carded.
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Tom Curry clearly unconscious after this collision.@ProgressiveRug
#SALvHAR pic.twitter.com/31q6k6nged
— Tony Hill (@AntonyMHill) September 22, 2024
Meanwhile, Curry stoops, so among other things he’s in no danger of a yellow. However, he is clearly knocked out. And so naturally, he’s taken off, asked a couple of questions, and then allowed back on.
We hand out yellows and reds in dozens, ostensibly to stop people getting head knocks but actually for tackles which really are not all that dangerous, yet correct tackle technique leaves players in at least as much danger of head knocks and when they do get knocked out, they’re allowed back onto the pitch… it’s not sending a good message to the outside world, is it?
Hogging the limelight
The partial fall from grace of Stuart Hogg has not been enjoyable to witness. Much of it is clearly his own fault, and there are clearly some personal problems which he needs to deal with away from the public eye. But he’s also been a very talented and watchable rugby player and a good servant to several employers.
It would be great if he could avoid the public scrutiny. Sadly not. Rugby is not well-stocked with headline-grabbing controversial figures (thank goodness), but when one does come along the pursuit can be remorseless.
The recent scuffle in the Montpellier-Toulouse match was hardly the stuff of YouTube legend. Hogg gave Thomas Ramos – who’s quite adept at winding people up on the pitch and absolutely threw the ball away when Hogg was entitled to get it back – a meaty enough shove. That might have been it, had not a dozen or so others felt compelled to let out their frustrations from a bitty game by shoving Hogg, and then each other, back. It carried on a bit too long, frankly and was all a bit childish.
What the whole thing was not, however, was ‘thuggery’, or a ‘mass brawl’. Nor was it Hogg behaving differently to many other players in similar positions, nor was it a sign that Hogg is becoming deeply unhinged, as some seem to be suggesting. Nothing to see, move along there…
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