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Arguably the best win from Los Pumas during the RWC 2007-2011 cycle came in June 2010. It was Argentina’s third home match of the June Internationals. Having lost a two match series at home against Scotland, the Felipe Contepomi captained side rebounded to defeat France by a record margin in Buenos Aires.
Contepomi was brilliant as he scored 31 points. He crossed for two tries while future captain Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe also scored as did winger Rafael Carballo. Les Bleus were out performed across the field with Julien Malzieu touching down for France’s one try of the contest.
Despite the final scoreline it was actually France who scored first. Les Bleus opened the scoring through scrum half Morgan Parra. He and Contepomi would exchange penalties twice before the Argentine fly half landed two more to give his side a 12-6 advantage.
With the first half coming to a close, Fernández Lobbe burst through to score the game’s opening try. Having run it back from his 22 he linked with Martín Rodríguez Gurruchaga to score himself in the right corner.
The score gave Argentina momentum and they would follow it through with a score early on in the second half. The scorer was Contepomi who fooled four French defenders in a third meter run through and around them. His 49th minute score gave Los Pumas a 20 point lead and all but secured the win.
France needed to score next and that they did. Crossing was left winger Julien Malzieu to reduce the deficit to 13 points with 28 minutes remaining. His opposite, Rafael Carballo hit-back to keep Los Pumas in the drivers seat. Caballo’s try had a beautiful assist pass from Santiago Fernández.
Four minutes later Los Pumas scored again. Man of the match Contepomi went over for his second try, again stepping his way through tacklers to score.
ATTENDANCE: 32,460
SCORING
ARGENTINA (41)
Try: Fernández Lobbe (40), Contepomi (48, 68), Carballo (59)
Conversion: Contepomi (40, 49, 68)
Penalty: Contepomi (4, 8, 26, 37, 65)
FRANCE (13)
Try: Malzieu (53)
Conversion: Parra (53)
Penalty: Porical (2), Parra (18)
TEAMS
ARGENTINA
1 Rodrigo Roncero, 2 Mario Ledesma, 3 Martín Scelzo, 4 Manuel Carizza, 5 Patricio Albacete, 6 Genaro Fessia, 7 Alejandro Campos, 8 Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe, 9 Nicolás Vergallo, 10 Felipe Contepomi (capt.), 11 Lucas González Amorosino, 12 Santiago Fernández, 13 Gonzalo Tiesi, 14 Rafael Carballo, 15 Martín Rodríguez Gurruchaga
Replacements: 16 Agustín Creevy, 17 Marcos Ayerza, 18 Juan Figallo, 19 Mariano Galarza, 20 Juan Manuel Leguizámon, 21 Agustín Figuerola, 22 Horacio Agulla
FRANCE
1 Fabien Barcella, 2 Dimitri Szarzewski, 3, Nicolas Mas, 4 Pascal Pape, 5 Lionel Nallet, 6 Thierry Dusautoir (capt.), 7 Julien Bonnaire, 8 Louis Picamoles, 9 Morgan Parra, 10 François Trinh-Duc, 11 Julien Malzieu, 12 Lionel Mazars, 13 Florian Fritz, 14 Vincent Clerc, 15 Jerome Porical
Replacements: 16 Guilhem Guirado, 17 Jean-Baptiste Poux, 18 Julien Pierre, 19 Gregory Lamboley, 20 Dimitri Yachvili, 21 Maxime Mermoz, 22 Clement Poitrenaud
