Sione Tuipulotu: Scotland centre looking to ‘get one back’ on Pumas after summer heartbreak in Argentina

Adam Kyriacou
Sione Tuipulotu for Scotland

Scotland centre Sione Tuipulotu is eager to exact revenge over Argentina at Murrayfield after they lost out to the Pumas in their July series.

The Scots suffered a 2-1 defeat earlier this year as a come-from-behind charge from Argentina broke the tourists’ hearts in the third Test in Santiago del Estero.

Now Tuipulotu and Scotland have an opportunity to get one over the Pumas on their home patch as the two teams face off in what promises to be an epic game.

Tough series loss in July

“I hope we can get one back on them after we fell short by a small margin in the summer,” said the bruising inside centre. “That’s a massive motivation this week.

“There’s also the factor that a lot of players who weren’t available to us in the summer are available to us now, the likes of Finn Russell, Stuart Hogg and Chris Harris. That adds a lot of experience.”

While Argentina went down to Wales in Cardiff last Saturday, they have enjoyed a superb second half to the year, defeating Australia, New Zealand and England.

That impressive form is not lost on Tuipulotu as the Glasgow Warriors back expects a tough challenge from Michael Cheika’s strong side at Murrayfield this week.

“We go into this game confident but I don’t think we go into it thinking we’re massive favourites or anything like that,” he said.

“Argentina have had some good results and Cheika’s had some success in his first year with the team.

“You can see the style of rugby they’re trying to play but we back ourselves and feel we can negate their strengths and play the kind of rugby we want to play.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction but, ultimately, we need to win this weekend, plain and simple. We’ve got to win at all costs.”

It will have been a difficult few days for Scotland as they reflected an agonising 31-23 loss to the All Blacks, but Tuipulotu stressed they will be using it as “fuel”.

Motivated for the weekend

“I don’t think there’s any psychological damage from last week,” he said.

“I went to the President’s Suite after the game on Sunday and I don’t know if they were expecting me to say we were feeling good about ourselves because we’d gone close to beating the All Blacks, but in the changing room afterwards there wasn’t really any of that.

“It was really disappointing, just looking round at all the boys, and hearing Gregor speaking after the game and to hear how hurt he was, knowing how close we had gone.

“I think that will be our motivation for this weekend. We’re using it as a bit of fuel to get the job done.”

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