Hourcade reveals his Pumas hand
Argentina coach Daniel Hourcade gave the first indication of what his World Cup line-up will look like, when he named his squad for the Rugby Championship.
He wasted no time in drafting in his overseas-based players who were not part of the just-completed two-match series against the French Barbarians.
Horacio Agulla (Bath), Marcos Ayerza (Leicester Tigers), Marcelo Bosch (Saracens) and Gonzalo Camacho (Leicester Tigers) joined the squad.
The numbers will be reduced from the current 36 to 28 when they head to Sydney on Saturday, July 11, where they will prepare for their opening Rugby Championship encounter – with New Zealand in Christchurch on July 17.
Hourcade said it has been a long process to select the squad.
"We have been evaluating players for some time – those players in Argentina that played in the Pacific Nations Cup, the South American championship and the friendly matches we played," the coach said.
"We evaluated players in all the games and in training and competition for places were very strong and there are many players who were unfortunate to have been left out.
"It is never pleasant not to make the cut."
He added that they monitored the European-based players all the time.
"These [European-based] and other players have been in the pipeline since last year," Hourcade said.
"We based our selection on our game plan and the profile of the players we need [to execute that]. We believe these are the best players," he added.
Argentinean squad: Horacio Agulla, Matías Alemanno, Marcos Ayerza, Marcelo Bosch, Gonzalo Camacho, Santiago Cordero, Agustín Creevy, Tomás Cubelli, Jerónimo de la Fuente, Matías Díaz, Felipe Ezcurra, Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe, Juan Figallo, Lucas González Amorosino, Santiago González Iglesias, Juan Martín Hernández, Ramiro Herrera, Santiago Iglesias Valdez, Juan Imhoff, Facundo Isa, Martín Landajo, Tomás Lavanini, Juan Manuel Leguizamón, Tomás Lezana, Benjamín Macome, Pablo Matera, Julián Montoya, Matías Moroni, Lucas Noguera, Javier Ortega Desio, Guido Petti Pagadizabal, Nicolás Sánchez, Leonardo Senatore, Juan Pablo Socino, Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro, Joaquín Tuculet.
