‘We’ll be ready for Rugby Championship’ – Mario Ledesma

Argentina will be ready to compete in this year’s Rugby Championship despite having several coronavirus cases in their squad at the moment.

That was the word from the Pumas’ head coach, Mario Ledesma, who was one of several members of the squad to test positive for Covid-19 in recent weeks.

Although Ledesma believes coronavirus will not impact his team’s preparations to travel to Australia – where the tournament will be held over a six-week period from November 7 to December 12 – he conceded that they will be rusty when they return to the Test arena.

Apart from Ledesma, Puma regulars Tomas Cubelli, Matias Moroni, Matias Orlando and Felipe Ezcurra as well as assistant coaches Nicolas Fernandez Miranda and Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe were amongst 13 players and coaching staff who were forced to isolate earlier this month.

But the situation has improved in recent weeks and Ledesma revealed that most of them have recovered.

“I’m all good, I never had symptoms or anything,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Ninety-nine per cent of our staff and players were fine. Only one guy got symptoms a month ago but the other guys were asymptomatic.

“It’s really weird because we had a lot of positive cases, but all asymptomatic. Some guys were living together, sharing maté [a popular drink in Argentina] and bathrooms but one got it and the other didn’t. It happened in three or four different cases.”

🗣️ "Those infected were isolated, are asymptomatic and in good health."

🇦🇷 More confirmed cases of coronavirus in the Argentina squad. 👇 https://t.co/kU92fGZE70

— Planet Rugby (@PlanetRugby) September 11, 2020

There was more good news last week as they had 26 negative cases. More negative results came back this week and the Argentines believe they will be Covid-19 free when they get on the plane to Australia, likely early next month.

“We won’t wait for everybody because we’ll be waiting forever,” Ledesma said. “We can only go once to Australia, we cannot go on different flights.

“We’re testing every 72 hours. We’ll be tested 72 hours before leaving, and once we get into Australia we’ll be tested again. The margin of getting a positive is really minor. I’ll be confident enough to say that we won’t get any positive cases. We wouldn’t take that risk.”

The 47-year-old admitted, however, that because many players in his squad have been out of action since March, it would have an impact on the team’s performances in the Rugby Championship.

“We’ll definitely be rusty,” he said.

“When you look at Super Rugby AU and Super Rugby Aotearoa, the level from the beginning of the comps and the end of the comps changed quite a bit.

“We’ll be going through that transition throughout the Rugby Championship. We can assure that we’ll be fit and mentally ready. The rugby will come.”