Advertisement

Results disappoint but Pumas in transition, says Hourcade

Britain Rugby Union - Argentina Captain's Run - Twickenham Stadium - 7/10/16 Argentina head coach Daniel Hourcade during training Action Images via Reuters / Henry Browne Livepic (Reuters)

By Rex Gowar LONDON (Reuters) - Beating England at Twickenham on Saturday would be a brilliant way for Argentina to end a difficult year but coach Daniel Hourcade would be just as happy to see his team play to their strengths against Eddie Jones's in-form side. Argentina have lost their last two matches to Wales and Scotland to drop out of the world’s top eight while England have won all 11 matches they have played this year. “We are aware of the impatience (there is) for results, and maybe now the impatience or pressure of the ranking,” Hourcade told Reuters in an interview at Argentina’s Kingston base on the Thames. This could mean the Pumas being outside the first two groups of seeds when the 2019 World Cup draw is made in May and landing in a pool with two heavyweights. “The results are very poor and we’re not at all happy with the results but we have a pile of growth factors especially on an individual level, our players have grown a lot,” Hourcade said. “I can understand people wanting results and on top of that there was a lot of hope seeing the team at the World Cup and thinking we’d get better results. We all thought we would and it’s been frustrating.” Argentina had an impressive 2015 World Cup in England, reaching the semi-finals, and Hourcade said 2016 was a transition year after losing several experienced players, incorporating younger ones and playing together as the Jaguares franchise in the revamped Super Rugby competition. “We do everything thinking of a project,” he said. “And we’re not going to change that just to get a win on Saturday. “We have prepared our best possible game for Saturday but without deviating from our objective which is a long term project aimed at 2019. “Before the World Cup we had a team working daily together for four months, now we have lots of new players straight out of the amateur clubs. This is not the same team. “We’ve had to make a huge leap from the days when players were based in Europe, playing a different game, with a different calendar. “Now we have the franchise, but just one, we’re just starting, this was our first year, we’ve not been at this for 20 years,” he said. “It’s like climbing a mountain, the last 100 metres are more difficult than the first 3,000.” SECOND BEST Jones said this week that England were facing the side he regarded as the second best in this year’s Rugby Championship despite finishing with the wooden spoon. Hourcade said the championship statistics bore out the fact that Argentina were second only to New Zealand in almost all facets of the game and in some cases top. “The statistics show we were second in most and even first in some, first in off-loads, ball carries (or) metres gained, fastest in emerging from the breakdown and in all the rest second, better than South Africa and Australia” he said. “The numbers back up what I’m saying.” Hourcade pointed out two big failings of his team, individual defensive mistake and poor decision making in taking play out of their own half. “In the Rugby Championship we conceded lots of tries, some too easily and took wrong decisions in how we work our way out of the ‘red’ zone. It's inexperience,” he said. “We had poor finishing, failures in defence, lots to work on, and then we get to November to face a different type of game and it’s down to one team imposing their game over the other. “If they manage to slow us down in getting the ball out we’re in trouble and we look like an extremely predictable team and that’s what Wales managed to do and Scotland too at certain moments (and)...I don’t doubt England will try to do the same.” Argentina have played 12 tests this year with four wins. They have not beaten England since 2009, at home in Salta, and have won only once at Twickenham, in 2006. Despite the poor recent results, Hourcade is loving the job and cannot see himself anywhere else even though he refused a new four-year contract last year. “I was offered four years but I said no, only two... The wear all this (work) produces implies there are things to analyse, but for me training the Pumas is the maximum,” Hourcade said. “If I had to sign today I would renew right away because the desire I have is greater than last year.” (Editing by Ed Osmond)