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Just hours after confirming the signature of Martín Landajo London club the Harlequins have also named 26-year-old Santiago García Botta on their roster for the 2019-2020 English Premiership season.
García Botta is a teammate of Landajo at Jaguares. Both players have played for the franchise from the beginning in 2016 but the 2019 season is to mark the end of an era with both moving to the Harlequins.
The club published the signing of García Botta on their website. It can be viewed by clicking here.
Both Landajo and García have signed for the Harlequins for the 2019-202o season. This will see them free to play for Argentina throughout 2019 including at RWC 2019 if selected.
For García Botta Los Jaguares was his second professional opportunity. He joined the Argentine Super Rugby franchise from Stade Français where he had been a medical joker under Gonzalo Quesada in 2014-2015.
With Los Pumas losing players to injury García Botta would join Argentina from France for the Bronze Final of RWC 2015. It marked his 6th test cap with his first having come against Chile in 2013.
Post RWC 2015 García Botta’s career would change dramatically. He and Lucas Noguera Paz would be the Jaguares loose head props and with Marcos Ayerza out of the frame due to playing for Leicester rather than in Super Rugby, the same two would be the leading specialists in the position.
Noguera Paz departed Argentina for Bath, England in December 2017, effectively ending his Pumas career on 43 caps. García Botta would benefit from this with he and tight head Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro being the starting options in Super Rugby and at international level.
No official announcement has yet been made though it is believed that Noguera Paz will be back at Jaguares in 2020. He met with Pumas Head Coach Mario Ledesma last week with Ledesma also meeting fellow Premiership loose head prop Facundo Gigena in addition to a total of twelve others across all positions.
Noguera Paz has 43 caps while García Botta has 33. Gigena is yet to be capped but joins the pairing in being very much in the frame for Los Pumas this year. Ledesma has confirmed that players genuinely considered as better than those at Jaguares will be selected.
Yet to play this year is Tetaz Chaparro who may yet be considered on the left side of the front-row. He joins García Botta, Mayco Vivas, and Juan Pablo Zeiss as the 2019 loose head options for Los Jaguares. Vivas has started all but one of the five matches thus far.
