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A special guest has been visiting Band Saracens this week. 24-year-old Argentine hooker Santiago Iglesias Valdés featured at the team’s training at the Band Arena in São Paulo.
Santiago Iglesias Valdés is the older brother of Erick who plays for Band Saracens. Together with his father German and brother Agustín the family traveled from Tucumán to Brazil’s largest city.
During the week Santiago Iglesias Valdés interacted with players, exchanging ideas and talking deeply about rugby. In addition, during the final training, the Band Saracens Coach Guilherme Marques had a special training session with the Puma. Santiago Iglesias Valdés held a special lineout session which was extremely well received by the club.
Band Saracens President Joaquin Mina commented that “it has been highly valuable to have the family visit the club, people who have rugby as their highest point of happiness, as is the case of Band rugby players. Santiago also made the point of participating at helping in our practice.”
The São Paulo club is preparing for the Taça Tupi, Brazil’s senior second division club competition.
Iglesias Valdés has 13 caps for Los Pumas. He made his debut against Uruguay in 2013 from the bench, replacing Mauricio Guidone. His most recent cap came in June 2016 against Chile. For much of 2014 and 2015 he was the understudy to Agustín Creevy. He narrowly missed out on selection for the World Cup with Julián Montoya preferred.
After two seasons of Super Rugby Los Jaguares have only Creevy and Montoya as the specialist hookers. Iglesias Valdés has not been involved but remains a more likely option to play test rugby than others to have featured below Creevy and Montoya.
In 2016 the Tucumán hooker played for the Argentina XV but is yet to do so this year. A lack of options has been Agustín Gomez di Nardo called up by Felipe Contepomi. The uncapped Belgrano hooker is now in the Argentina ‘A’ side at the age of 32.
