Rugby World Cup Match Preview - Argentina vs Scotland
Saturday 24 September 2011
Scotland go into their penultimate Pool B game knowing that victory would all but guarantee them qualification for the knock-out stages. On the other hand defeat could easily result in their elimination from the competition with a tough game against England still to come. Argentina are in the same sort of situation knowing that only a victory here is likely to see them progress. Scotland are in the slightly more fortunate position of knowing they could lose this game but still have a chance of beating England, whereas Argentina unfortunately lost out to the English in their narrow opening game defeat.
Argentina received a massive boost earlier this week when it was confirmed that captain Felipe Contepomi was confirmed fit to play, whilst Scotland prop Euan Murray has ruled himself out of the game for religious reasons. This comes as a big blow to Andy Robinson who earlier this week declared Murray as his 'best scrummager'. This certainly gives the strong Argentinean pack a boost. However, Scotland can take solace in the fact they have beaten Argentina in both of the teams last two meetings, one of which was in Argentina.
Argentina have so far impressed during Rugby World Cup 2011 with a narrow defeat to England and a comfortable win against Romania, this despite very little in the way of international test matches for the team during the last year. In contrast Scotland have made a slow start to the competition, sealing narrow wins against Georgia and Romania but with England still to face.
Scotland have made a couple of changes for the match with Lawson taking on the captains armband whilst Alastair Kellock is left out of the line-up. Chris Paterson and Ruaridh Jackson also come back into the starting line-up whilst Geoff Cross replaces Euan Murray amongst others. This match is sure to see fireworks with Scotland looking to make it six wins in a row (a feat not achieved since their 1989-90 grand slam winning year) and maintain their record of reaching every single World Cup knock-out stage. However, Argentina will be looking to build on their 3rd place finish in 2007. Unfortunately one of these teams is going to come away disappointed on Sunday.
Argentina: 15 MartÃn RodrÃguez, 14 Gonzalo Camacho, 13 Marcelo Bosch, 12 Felipe Contepomi (c), 11 Horacio Agulla, 10 Santiago Fernández, 9 Nicolás Vergallo, 8 Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe, 7 Juan Manuel Leguizamón, 6 Julio Farias Cabello, 5 Patricio Albacete, 4 Manuel Carizza, 3 Juan Figallo, 2 Mario Ledesma Arocena, 1 Rodrigo Roncero.
Replacements: 16 AgustÃn Creevy, 17 MartÃn Scelzo, 18 Mariano Galarza, 19 Genaro Fessia, 20 Alfredo Lalanne, 21 Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino, 22 Juan Jose Imhoff.
Scotland: 15 Chris Paterson, 14 Max Evans, 13 Nick De Luca, 12 Graeme Morrison, 11 Sean Lamont, 10 Ruaridh Jackson, 9 Rory Lawson (c), 8 Kelly Brown, 7 John Barclay, 6 Al Strokosch, 5 Jim Hamilton, 4 Richie Gray, 3 Geoff Cross, 2 Ross Ford, 1 Allan Jacobsen.
Replacements: 16 Dougie Hall, 17 Alasdair Dickinson, 18 Nathan Hines, 19 Richie Vernon, 20 Mike Blair, 21 Dan Parks, 22 Simon Danielli.
