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Today’s announcement from French Top 14 club Stade Rochelais (La Rochelle) that uncapped Australian fly half Brock James will be joining them for the next two seasons sends mixed messages to the UAR. On the one hand it will ensure greater game time to a current Argentine colleague of James while on the other it may mean the much awaited return of Patricio Fernández to Argentina is further delayed.
After ten years at Clermont James will be joining a rival club and doing so now that he has lost the top spot at the club to French international Camille Lopez. Fernández has received game time, playing five matches thus far for the club off the bench.
Fernández signed for Clermont on November 2014, a time when Argentina was touring Europe and doing so without him. He arrived at the club in February of this year on a two-year-deal and did so knowing that he would not be considered for international duty after the World Cup.
Still aged just 21 the two-time capped Argentine fly half was deemed by Daniel Hourcade as not yet being ready for the elite level. Hourcade took Nicolás Sánchez and Juan Martín Hernández to the World Cup as his specialist fly halves and had both Santiago González Iglesias and Juan Pablo Socino, selected as utility centers, providing cover.
Fernández missed out for this reason though it is widely believed that he is wanted back home and sooner rather than later. Socino has decided to remain in Europe until at least 2018, thereby opening up a spot on the 2016 Pumas roster. Emiliano Boffelli, a young play-making center or fullback recently joined while his 2015 Junior World Championship teammates Ezcurra Bautista and Domingo Miotti are additional long term options.
For the time being, though, they are significantly inexperienced. Fernández’s growth as a player at Clermont makes him highly valuable and ready for international duty if and when required. Efforts to bring him home will be criticial to the long term balance of the roster.
