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Jerónimo will lead Argentina out against Australia on Saturday. He assumes the captaincy from his Stade Francis teammate, Pablo Matera. The 27-year-old Matera was revoked of the captaincy in response to tweets from 2011-2012 that surfaced on Monday.
Matera led Argentina from October 2018 to November 2020. He replaced Agustín Creevy as captain for the November 2018 tour. Los Pumas played fourteen test matches during this period. Matera led his country to RWC 2019 and subsequently, in 2020, to a historic win over New Zealand.
Matera, Santiago Socino, and Guido Petti were suspended on Monday. This was overturned on Thursday (Australia time), enabling all three to play against the Wallabies on Saturday. However, none of them will feature; all three will sit out the match.
The 29-year-old de la Fuente will be the official skipper for the match. He does so after previously having captained Los Jaguares in 2019-2020. The center from Rosario will now captain Los Pumas for the first time.
de la Fuente has been Puma since 2014. He has 55 test caps, 39 of which were in the starting line-up. He will hav experienced teammates on Saturday. Nicolás Sánchez has the most with 83 caps. Matías Alemanno has 64 and Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro and Julián Montoya both have 61 caps.
Matera has 69 caps. He will reassume the captaincy when Argentina next play. That will be in July 2021 when Argentina are scheduled to host Wales for two test matches. A third fixture will be added against either Fiji or Georgia.
