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Match day two of the Nations Cup sees an intercontinental match between Argentina’s national next of XV and Russia. In their respective first matches the sides had opposite results. Russia were beaten 48-26 by Nations Cup hosts Uruguay while the Argentina XV achieved a 39-25 win over Namibia.
Both the Argentina XV, and Russia have gone for wholesale changes for the match. For the South Americans they begin in the front-row where former Jaguar Diego Fortuny will start at hooker in place of José Luiz González.
In the second-row Carlos Repetto has been promoted to start which sees Jerónimo Ureta moving to play out of position at flanker. Ureta will join captain Lautaro Bavaro, and Nicolás Sbrocco in the back-row with the latter moving from flanker to N8 in place of Santiago Montagner.
In the baks Martín Landajo continues at scrum-half. His partner in the halves will be Martín Roger who replaces Teo Castiglioni. Outside Roger comes a double change with Bautista Ezcurra, and Agustín Segura replaced by Lucas Mensa, and Tomás Cubilla as the starting centers.
In the back-three there are two final changes. One sees Julián Domínguez back into the side with the other seeing Facundo Cordero moving from the right wing to fullback.
The non-capped aspect of the match has its advantages. One of them is the means to experiment knowing no rankings points can be lost. Russia has nothing to lose and everything to gain from the match and this comes into play in the form of eight changes.
Up front Evgeny Mishechkin comes in to the side in place of Andrei Polivalov at loose head prop. Also altered in the front-five is half of the engine room as Andrey Garbuzov takes over from Bogdan Fedotko in the second-row.
Both flankers who started against Uruguay have been replaced. This sees Roman Khodin, and Vitaly Zhivatov into the team to fill the boots of Eme Patris Peki, and Tagir Gadzhiev respectively.
The final member of the back-row will be N8 Victor Gresev who has been retained but takes on a new responsibility as he replaces Vasily Artemyev as captain. Artemyev drops to the bench with his spot going to German Godlyuk at fullback.
Three additional changes have been made to the backs. At scrum-half Vasily Dorofeev starts ahead of Dmitry Perov; Ramil Gaisin replaces Yury Kushnarev at fly half; while Kirill Golosnitskiy moves from wing to inside center to replace Dmitry Gerasimov.
Sunday’s match will be game two between the Argentina XV, and Russia. The prior fixture was also a part of the Nations Cup. It saw an unprepared Argentina XV side nearly beaten as they clawed their way to a 39-38 victory.
The likelihood of Russia achieving a win against the Argentina XV in Montevideo is low. The Bears have named a weakened line-up from that which fell short against Uruguay. In addition the Argentina XV are far more organized under Ignacio Fernández Lobbe than in the 2016-2018 years. The Argentina XV go into the game as favorites to win by 20 points.
The match will be streamed live by World Rugby. It can be seen by accessing the official website, youtube channel, or twitter.
TEAMS
ARGENTINA XV
1 Nicolás Solveyra, 2 Diego Fortuny, 3 Martín Segurotti, 4 Ignacio Calas, 5 Carlos Repetto, 6 Jerónimo Ureta, 7 Lautaro Bavaro (capt.), 8 Nicolás Sbrocco, 9 Martín Landajo, 10 Martín Roger, 11 Manuel Montero, 12 Lucas Mensa, 13 Tomás Cubilla, 14 Julián Domínguez, 15 Facundo Cordero
Replacements: 16 José Luis González, 17 Rodrigo Martínez, 18 Luciano Ortiz, 19 Lucas Santa Cruz, 20 Santiago Montagner, 21 Manuel Nogués, 22 Bautista Ezcurra, 23 Tomás Albornoz
RUSSIA
1 Evgeny Mishechkin, 2 Evgeny Matveev, 3 Kirill Gotovtsev, 4 Evgeny Elgin, 5 Andrey Garbuzov, 6 Roman Khodin, 7 Vitaly Zhivatov, 8 Victor Gresev (capt.), 9 Vasily Dorofeev, 10 Ramil Gaisin, 11 Vladislav Sozonov, 12 Kirill Golosnitskiy, 13 Vladimir Ostroushko, 14 German Davydov, 15 German Godlyuk
Replacements: 16 Sergey Chernyshev, 17 Andrei Polivalov, 18 Innokentiy Zykov, 19 Alexander Ilin, 20 Tagir Gadzhiev, 21 Dmitry Perov, 22 Sergei Ianiushkin, 23 Vasily Artemyev
Date: Sunday, June 09
Kick-Off: 2:00pm (Local)
Venue: Estadio Charrúa, Montevideo
Referee: Francisco González (Uruguay)
Assistant Referee: Frank Murphy (Ireland), Local (Uruguay)
