Still without official presentation as head coach of The Pumas, Felipe Contepomi made official its first call for the Camp Puma in London, a concentration scheduled for March 11, 12 and 13, four months before the start of the official competition that will serve as the starting point of his leadership in the Argentine rugby team.
Although it is about the continuity of the work of the Australian Michael Cheikawho molded the staff that he will now be in charge of and in which they will continue Andrés Bordoy y Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe as assistants, the final word is Contepomi’s.
For 24 of the 31 summoned, it will be the reunion after the last match of the World Cup France 2023the defeat against England in it Stade France for third place. Of the seven who did not participate in the championship, none is unknown since they had been part of the group and were left out, mainly due to injuries.
With the exception of Franco Molinacaptain of the franchise Dogos XV, the rest of those called up play in different teams in European leagues. This explains, at least partially, the absence of Pablo Matera y Nicolas Sanchezwho play in the Japanese league.
In addition to Matera and Sánchez, the other absent World Cup players are Martin Bogadothe historical and record holder Augustine Creevy, Tomás Cubelli, Francisco Gómez Kodela -the only one who publicly renounced the team-, Juan Imhoff, Facundo Isa, Rodrigo Isgroy Lucas Pauloswho joined after the injury that took the former captain of Los Pumas out of France 2023.
Those who will be in London and watched the World Cup on TV are Thomas Albornoz, Santiago Cordero, Bautista Delguy, Franco Molina, Lucio Sordoni, Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro y Santiago Grondona. Of that roster, the last two were sidelined due to injury, while Sordoni worked alongside the squad as a possible replacement, but was also ruled out.
Of the World Cup Pumas, 24 were called up again: Matías Alemanno, Lautaro Bazan Velez, Eduardo Bello, Gonzalo Bertranou, Emiliano Boffelli, Rodrigo Bruni, Matthew Carreras y Santiago Carreras.
They complete the payroll Santiago Chocobares, Lucio Cinti, Jerome De La Fuente, Thomas Gallo, Juan Martin Gonzalez, Marcos Kremer, Tomás Lavanini, Juan Cruz Mallía, Julian Montoya, Matias Moroni, Joaquin Oviedo, Guido Petti, Pedro Rubiolo, Ignacio Ruiz, Joel Sclavi y Mayco Vivas.
“This meeting is a very good opportunity to see each other again, after what was an intense last year. Although the monitoring and contact with the players was never interrupted, the intention is to be together again to review everything that has been done so far in the last two years, see where we are going and how we can improve for the new World Cup cycle. that begins,” Contepomi indicated on the Argentine Rugby Union site (COMMON).
The 2024 calendar has a dozen commitments planned for Los Pumas. The first of them will be on July 6 in Argentina, to face France and inaugurate the international window that will be completed with a second duel against Blues and the remaining match with a rival that has not yet been confirmed, but corresponds to the Tier 2 segment.
With that base of 31 players and possibly more called up, Contepomi will face his first head coach Rugby Championshipwith a program between August 10 and September 28, in an edition that will resume the six matches – the last World Cup was just three – of which they will face at home twice Australia and one to South Africa.
The two games against All Blacks will be in New Zealand and the rest in front of Springboks, also as a visitor. The end of the year will be determined by the tour that will take Los Pumas to Italia, Ireland y France with test matches scheduled for November 9, 16 and 23.