Argentina’s coach, Daniel Hourcade, has hit back at claims he is under pressure after a dismal run of form and promised his team will answer Eddie Jones’s goading on the pitch on Saturday.
The Pumas have lost 17 of their 22 matches since reaching the semi-finals of the 2015 Rugby World Cup but Hourcade expects England to be the more anxious of the sides at Twickenham because everyone has already written off his team.
“The pressure is more for England,” he claimed. “They are No2 in the world and we are No10. We are playing here in their stadium in November in the last part of our season. I think England has more pressure. If we lose it will be logical, if they lose …” At that point the coach smiled and shrugged his shoulders, before asking: “Who has the pressure?”
Hourcade was quick to describe Jones as a “magnificent” coach before pointedly suggesting his rival’s barbs were not necessarily to be taken seriously. “He has trained a different type of team on different levels – Australia, Japan and now England – and with all of them he has done a magnificent job,” the Argentinian said. “That speaks all about him, he is a great coach and he is bringing England to very good things. But when it comes to mind games we all know how he is. Perhaps some things he says that are not true. We will do our talking on the pitch.”
Few are giving the Pumas much hope given they have managed only one win in 2017, at home against Georgia in June. But Argentina’s assistant coach, Pablo Bouza, insists there have been several optimistic signs amid the defeats, pointing out Argentina led in several matches – including at half-time in New Zealand – only to fail to maintain their challenge. “It’s not our fitness, though,” he said. “It’s about making unforced errors, our mentality and our decision-making, and we are working [on] these things.”
Hourcade admitted his frustration at losing twice to England at home last summer – the first Test was close at 38-34 and the second finished 35-25 – despite facing a team without many of their best players owing to the concurrent Lions tour. “We took the eye off the ball in the first Test, lost the opportunity to win because we dominated most of the game and we didn’t win,” he said. “The second game was a little bit more equal and we had the opportunity to win that too. But Saturday will be a new opportunity.”
Argentina’s record against England is hardly anything to shout about – they have won only four of 22 Tests – and they have not defeated them at Twickenham since 2006.
Hourcade hopes Juan Martín Hernández can rediscover top form after giving the 35-year-old fly-half a surprise start. “Time moves on for everyone, but Juan Martín has got a lot of experience,” he said. “Everyone knows what a good player he is, and we want to take advantage of that for this game.
“He is a player who has the capacity to adapt to any type of game. The team he used to play with before, they played from the 10 and he was the conductor. Now our gameplan is a little more dynamic, we start playing from the No9 and he adapts very well to that also.”
Hernández is restored in an attempt to inspire a backline that scored only 11 tries in six matches of the Rugby Championship and failed to register a point in the standings for the first time since their debut in 2012. He replaces Nicolás Sánchez, who was their leading points scorer at the 2015 World Cup in England but has struggled this year with his goal-kicking.
Hourcade insists he has seen enough weak points in Jones’s side to at least raise the possibility of a huge upset. “England are a complete team,” he conceded. “They are really efficient, on top of all, but they have some weak points. Our strategy will be to attack those weak points.”
