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Six Pumas have been ruled-out of Saturday’s Rugby Championship fixture. Los Pumas are to face the Wallabies in the second match between the sides to close out the 2021 Rugby Championship for both teams. The South Americans will do so without six players who violated regulations by crossing state borders from Queensland to New South Wales during their rest day on Wednesday, local time.
The UAR released a statement which identified who the players are and confirmed that they will all miss out on representing Argentina on Saturday. They were joined by two staff members. The six players are hooker Santiago Socino, tight head Santiago Medrano, flanker Pablo Matera, scrum half Felipe Ezcurra, fly half Joaquín Díaz Bonilla, and winger Sebastián Cancelliere.
The incident is the second of note for Matera and Socino. The pair and second-rower Guido Petti were involved in a scandal involving racism ahead of the final match of the 2020 Rugby Championship. Mario Ledesma opted to rest all three ahead of the final match in 2020 which was also against Australia. Matera was subsequently replaced as captain by Julián Montoya.
Matera has held down a starting position throughout the 2021 Rugby Championship. Four of the five remaining players have received game time. Of then Medrano and Ezcurra have being involved in the starting line-up. Medrano’s place is now set to go to Enrique Pieretto with Juan Pablo Zeiss likely to be his understudy.
Ezcurra’s situation is clearer. Despite having started the first match, he was dropped to the bench and then left out of the match-day 23 for the past three matches. In other words, Goznalo Bertranou and Gonzalo García will again be the two scrum-halves for Saturday’s match against the Wallabies.
The situation regarding Matera is less clear. Ledesma’s options are thin. Matera, Rodrigo Bruni, Santiago Grondona, Facundo Isa, and Tomás Lezana are all missing. Matera has been a constant in the team at flanker. However, injury to Bruni and Isa saw Matera moving to No8 with Juan Martín González thereby starting at flanker. With Bruni yet to be 100% fit, Joaquín Oviedo is the natural replacement at N8 though Francisco Gorrissen will also be considered.
