Peters: World Cup stars no guarantee for Jaguares
Greg Peters, the former SANZAR CEO who is now General Manager of Unión Argentina de Rugby, said the South American franchise has a "nice mix" of youth and experience.
However, the high attrition rate that Super Rugby produces may be the biggest threat to one of the tournament's pre-season favourites.
"We have 21 members of our 31-man World Cup squad involved in Super Rugby," Peters told rugby365 in an interview from Buenos Aires, adding: "It is not quite the full World Cup squad.
"However, if you look at the history of Super Rugby, the successful teams – like the Crusaders, the Waratahs, Sharks, etc – often had a predominance of international players in their squad."
Peters said Argentinean team is very young – the average age about 23/24.
"That is the exciting part," the Argentinean boss said.
"We have another group of players champing at the bit to be involved as well.
"It is quite a good a mix for us, with some international players, but very young international players and a few older players thrown into the mix."
He said the one major issue is that they haven't faced the attrition that comes with the world's toughest competition.
"The other teams have faced this [attrition] for 20 years, the week-in-and-week-out demands of Super Rugby and the impact on the players."
He said the challenge of playing the best players and best teams week-in-and-week-out, along with the travel burden, could pose a major obstacle to their ambitions of a successful debut.
"After every away game there is a minimum nine- to 10-hour flight," Peters told rugby365, adding: "It is managing the players.
"Yes, we have a group of international players, but they are going to be together the whole year – playing Super Rugby, then the June Tests and returning to Super Rugby, going onto the Rugby Championship and then the year-end Tests.
"That is quite a challenge, to keep it fresh, interesting and exciting for the players.
"The great thing is that these guys are really excited about being involved in this competition, very excited about being back home playing for a country and a team that they love."
Peters said they are confident they have the depth to cope with the attrition rate.
"Like any team, injuries could be an issue.
"If you have a significant core of your squad out injured, that changes the dynamics completely.
"We have yet to manage our way through that process and, as I said, that will be one of the big challenges."
The Jaguares had a late start to their pre-season build-up, assembling only on January 4 – unlike most teams who started in November last year.
By Jan de Koning
@King365ed
@rugby365com
