By Gavin Rich.
Pumas coach Michael Cheika has recalled the hero of Argentina’s historic first ever win in South Africa for Saturday’s Castle Lager Rugby Championship decider in Durban.
It was at Kings Park just over seven years ago that Argentina made history with a 37-25 win over Heyneke Meyer’s Springboks that reverberated around the rugby world, and Saturday’s game will be played at the same venue.
Imhoff, who is on the left wing in this game but also plays fullback, will recall that game with more pride and fond memories than the several other teammates who shared that day with him and are back again, for he scored an amazing hat-trick of tries.
Argentina scored four tries that day as their backline easily cut apart a Bok backline that had Jesse Kriel on the wing and included in skipper Jean de Villiers a centre who had been out of rugby for eight months and was trying desperately to get back his fitness and his edge ahead of the Rugby World Cup in England a month later.
By scoring three of those tries, Imhoff was the outstanding visiting player, but Cheika denied that the decision to drop Lucio Cinti was guided by any thoughts of the Durban venue being a happy hunting ground for him and memories of how he toyed with Kriel, back in his preferred position of centre now, in that game.
“Seven years is a long time and what happened that long ago can’t have any bearing on a game this amount of time later,” said Cheika.
“Anyway I think Canan Moodie (the 19-year-old Bok who will mark Imhoff) looks a fine player. I haven’t seen a lot of him but I have watched some of the games he has played and he really looks like a genuine finisher. I’ve brought in Imhoff because he is a creative player and I would like to see if he can create any opportunities he can be on the end of.”
While admitting that what happened in August 2015 would have no bearing on what happens in September 2022, the former Wallabies coach admitted he was surprised how many of the team selected for Saturday also played in that game. Including reserves, there are nine players who did duty at Kings Park seven years ago back again.
“I still don’t think what happened seven years ago will have any bearings on this match,” he said.
Cheika added that Imhoff had shown excellent recent form for his club, the French team Racing 92.
The selection of Imhoff for Cinti was the only change to the starting team, although there are two additional changes on the bench to the squad that lost 36-20 to the Boks in Buenos Aires last Saturday.
Cheika said that he’d been encouraged by parts of the performance last week and for him the recipe for victory is a simple one.
“We had a splendid second half, so we need a first half this week like last week’s second half, obviously not for all of the time but for periods of it. We had a good start to the game last week and then it turned against us. We recovered and then we had a bad finish to the game, giving away too many penalties.
“It has been a bit of a recurring problem that for us. It also happened against Australia (in the first Championship game), where we gave away six penalties in six minutes and surrendered field position and the whole game changed. We are in a new place as far as that is concerned, I mean a new place in terms of being competitive (against South Africa, New Zealand and Australia), so there is some learning still to do.”
Argentina will know when they start on Saturday whether they retain any of their currently extremely remote chance of winning the Championship, but Cheika said it will have no bearing on their approach.
“Our approach and our motivation will have absolutely nothing to do with the tournament,” said Cheika.
“There won’t be any deflation if we are not still in with a chance of winning it. Our No 1 priority is to represent the country with pride. For us that is really important. And then there’s also the fact we are playing away from home in front of a full house at Kings Park and we need to back each other up. The players thrive on and enjoy difficult environments.”
There will also be the small matter of trying to make up for the disappointment of last week, with Cheika clearly feeling his team had let an opportunity slip from their grasp.
“I was the most disappointed with that defeat of any defeat we have suffered this year because of the context. The crowd was amazing but we didn’t deliver for them. I just hope they are going to be as behind us as they were in the stadium last week when they watch this game on television on Saturday.”
ARGENTINA TEAM: Juan Cruz Mallia, Emiliano Boffelli, Matias Moroni, Jeronimo de la Fuente, Juan Imhoff, Santia Carreras, Gonzalo Bertranou, Pablo Matera, Marcos Kremer, Tomas Lavanini, Alemanno Matias, Bello Eduardo, Julian Montoya (captain), Manuel Tetaz Chaparro.
REPLACEMENTS: Agustin Creevy, Marco Vivas, Joel Sclavi, Guido Petti, Pedro Rubiolo, Tomas Cubelli, Benjamin Urdapilleta, Bautista Delguy.