It is make or break for Pumas
Argentina’s World Cup match against Scotland on Sunday is the country’s most important in four years, according to centre Marcelo Bosch.
Los Pumas streaked to third place in the 2007 World Cup, beating hosts France in the bronze-medal play-off after being well beaten by eventual winners South Africa in the semifinals.
And Biarritz playmaker Bosch was in no doubt the Pool B match against the Scottish bore all the markings of a must-win game, given that the Argentines lost their opener against England.
Argentina went on to beat Romania 43-8, but Scotland are sitting pretty with wins over the Romanians (34-24) and Georgia (15-6), albeit with a final pool game against England to come on October 1 after this weekend’s Argentine hurdle.
“I think it will be a really tough game, perhaps our most important match in the past four years … and we expect to win of course,” said Bosch.
“Scotland have a very good team and have progressed a lot in the last few years. They keep the control of the ball as far as they can. They have a couple of good flyhalves and they are very strong, so I think it’s going to be a very difficult game,” he added.
Although it was Argentina who dispatched Scotland at the quarterfinals of the last World Cup, the Scottish notched up an away two-Test series win over Los Pumas last summer for a massive confidence booster.
“We have to continue our system of playing, our own strategy and I expect to have a good day,” Bosch explained.
“Scotland have players at a higher level than those of Romania, and we won’t have the same open spaces as we did against Romania,” he said, adding that discipline would be a must.”
Scotland’s kicking coach Duncan Hodge, the former international flyhalf, warned his team that retaining possession against Argentina would be imperative in order to obtain parity at set-piece and in territory.
“They are obviously a really strong team and we’ve played them a bit the past couple of years. They have a great kicking game and some great individual players. On the counter attack they are very strong as well,” Hodge said.
“Argentina are the sort of team it’s best to maintain possession against. They score a lot of points, so it’s important to maintain possession. They have a good defensive pack as well and territory is a big thing for them.”
Hodge also had no doubt that Scotland were capable of matching the highly-rated Puma front row.
“We’re in a strong scrummage pool and we like to think we’re going to match it with Argentina,” he said.
SAPA-AP
