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Released on Monday, Argentina’s roster for RWC 2019 contained fifteen returning players from RWC 2015. Attention now turns to preparing for the pool matches against France, Tonga, England, and the USA.
RWC 2015 Returnees
Mario Ledesma’s final decision on who to take to Japan was based around the starting XV and replacements. His philosophy was thereby not to focus on experience as an category of overriding importance. This, in part, saw no places for Santiago Cordero, Juan Imhoff, or Facundo Isa.
There was, however, one clear exception – Juan Manuel Leguizamón. The 36-year-old was included not with an eye to starting against France, and likely also not against Tonga. Instead it was motivated heavily by his off-field contributions.
While this may at first appear to be taking-up the post of another player it must be noted that this is not an isolated case. In RWC 2015 the champions, New Zealand had a veteran flanker of their own, Liam Messam. He would play a total of 16 minutes for the All Blacks in the tournament.
In addition to Leguizamón additional players from RWC 2015 who will also play in Japan 2019 include forwards Matías Alemanno, Agustín Creevy, Juan Figallo, Tomás Lavanini, Pablo Matera, Julián Montoya, Javier Ortega Desio, Guido Petti, and Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro and; backs Tomás Cubelli, Jerónimo de la Fuente, Matías Moroni, Nicolás Sánchez, and Joaquín Tuculet.
RWC debutants
Of the remaining sixteen players all will be appearing in their first RWC. Of the forwards Tomás Lezana is the only player who was capped prior to the previous RWC. Backs Felipe Ezcurra, Matías Orlando, Ramiro Moyano, and Benjamin Urdapilleta had previously been capped.
The eleven remaining players were all capped for the first time during the 2016-2019 years. Four of them debuted for Argentina under Daniel Hourcade – Emiliano Boffelli, Marcos Kremer, Santiago Medrano, and Enrique Pieretto.
The remaining eight players made their test debuts over the past twelve months. They are Rodrigo Bruni, Santiago Carreras, Bautista Delguy, Juan Cruz Mallía, Santiago Medrano, Lucas Mensa, Santiago Socino, and Mayco Vivas. Of them Carreras, and Mensa debuted this past Saturday.
Missing Pumas From 2016-2019
The change from Hourcade to Ledesma in seeing more new faces included means established names have missed the cut. Ledesma’s roster sees no place for some players who had been familiar names under Hourcade.
The following list documents every player to have played for Argentina from 2016-2019 who is missing from Ledesma’s 31-man RWC 2019 roster.
FORWARDS (16): Felipe Arregui, Rodrigo Báez (R), Facundo Bosch, Gastón Cortes, Javier Díaz, Diego Fortuny, Santiago García Botta, Mariano Galarza, Ramiro Herrera, Facundo Isa, Ignacio Larrague*, Benjamín Macome, Lucas Noguera Paz, Leonardo Senatore, Lucio Sordoni, and Juan Pablo Zeiss.
BACKS (12): Gabriel Ascarate, Gonzalo Bertranou, Sebastián Cancelliere, Santiago Cordero, Juan Pablo Estelles, Bautista Ezcurra, Lucas González Amorosino, Santiago González Iglesias, Juan Martín Hernández (R), Martín Landajo, Manuel Montero, and Germán Schulz.
* Unused replacement who remains uncapped.
(R) Retired
