The coach of the Argentine rugby team, the Australian Michael Cheika, confirmed on Thursday the starting line-up to face Scotland next Saturday at the start of the international season for Los Pumas.
Cheika’s debut match at the helm of Los Pumas will be played on Saturday at 4:05 p.m. at the Gimnasia de Jujuy stadium, the first of a series of three that will be completed a week later at the Padre Matearena in Salta and on Saturday the 16th at the Mother of Cities of Santiago del Estero.
The Pumas will form as follows: Juan Cruz Mallía: Santiago Cordero, Matías Orlando, Jerónimo de la Fuente and Emiliano Boffelli; Nicolás Sánchez and Tomás Cubelli; Pablo Matera, Marcos Kremer and Juan Martín González; Matías Alemanno and Guido Petti; Francisco Gómez Kodela, Julián Montoya (captain) and Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro. The bench of substitutes will be made up of Agustín Creevy, Mayco Vivas, Joel Sclavi, Lucas Paulos, Facundo Isa, Gonzalo Bertranou, Santiago Carreras, Matías Moroni.
“It is a very important date and we are ready. The players are developing a training very different from what they trained in their own clubs,” explained the Australian, who replaces the historic Mario Ledesma. “We are focusing on other things , showing concentration not only thinking about Saturday but also in the long term, in all stages of the game. They were not easy training sessions, on the contrary, there was more intensity, the times are different”, he referred.
Beyond the 15 that he chose for the premiere, Cheika made it clear that he seeks to enlarge the player base, to have more options to choose from before each game. “There is not a number one team, we like to build two or three teams that are competent among them and that have a similar base and with the mind that any player can join” the squad.
“Now there are 33 and you can join 12 more than 45 would do,” said Cheika, who with this sought to generate “confidence in each player to replace his partner and to do so without panic.”
For his part, the coach of the Scottish national team, Gregor Townsend, announced the starting team to face Los Pumas, which will be made up of: Rory Hutchinson; Darcy Graham, Mark Bennett, Sam Johnson, and Duhan van der Merwe; Blair Kinghorn and Ali Price; Matt Fagerson, Luke Crosbie and Magnus Bradbury; Jonny Gray and Grant Gilchrist; Zander Fagerson, George Turner and Pierre Schoeman
The substitute bench will be made up of: Ewan Ashman, Rory Sutherland, Javan Sebastian, Sam Skinner, Rory Darge, Ben White, Ross Thompson and Sione Tuipulotu.