At this point in the rugby cycle teams from all over the world have a rare chance to work on their strength in depth but also to brandish it. This weekend the World Rugby Under-20 Championship reaches its climax in Georgia, while the best of British and Irish lock horns with the Maori, broadly analogous to a New Zealand second or third team. Next weekend the Lions take on the All Blacks themselves.
Meanwhile, on a third continent, what is left of England, with 30 of their best players unavailable, are wound up in a special bubble preparing to clinch a two-Test series against Argentina, who will be there again in two years’ time when the pool stages of the World Cup get under way. Having blooded 10 new caps in a remarkable 38-34 win last Saturday in San Juan, the convoy moves directly east across the country to Santa Fe.
“While the eyes of the rugby world aren’t on us right now, I think that’s a good thing,” says Dylan Hartley, England’s captain, who will move into third place on England’s list of caps winners. “Our eyes are on us and we are continually developing and trying to get better. I think English rugby is in a very strong place at the moment.”
He may think the eyes of the rugby world are not on him but the benefits of a terrestrial showcase meant that 1.8 million viewers watched the exhilarating scenes from San Juan last Saturday – versus the 600,000 who saw the Lions. And in Santa Fe there is little sign of a drop-off in interest. Hartley and Eddie Jones joined their equivalents from Argentina and a few other local dignitaries at a top-table press conference on Thursday night in front of an audience of hundreds.
Jones is relishing the old-school feel of this tour of the provinces. “It is good to see Argentina bring rugby to the regional centres. One of the unfortunate things of professional rugby is that that has died out in a lot of other countries, because money drives the game. This tour has brought a bit of that back.”
Argentina are thriving on the back of their closer assimilation into the fabric of world rugby, even if they are on a horrible run of 10 defeats from their last 12 games. The blend of speed and furious power with which they play the game will surely develop into something special, possibly the equal of their vintages who finished in the top four at two of the last three World Cups. Which should give those in their pool pause for thought, at least.
If England are not at full strength here, neither are Argentina, who continue to exclude those playing overseas. “We are expecting our European players to return [by the time of the World Cup],” says Daniel Hourcade, Argentina’s coach. “As much as it is a political decision, it is also a rugby one. It’s important that they come back and play in Super Rugby, because that’s what we’re aiming for.”
England squad members can barely move from A to B without being asked about the prospect of Argentina hosting a Lions tour or a World Cup, either of which, incidentally, the country would be perfect for. But, for now, it is England who are in town, albeit this curious but vital blend of youth and exuberance with cool experience.
Last Saturday’s game was one for the ages, Argentina taking the initiative with a pace that Jones described as 10% higher than anything they encountered in the Six Nations. Jones was delighted with the test it posed his youngsters – and how they came through it – but he expects a different one again on Saturday, the dry, high heat of San Juan morphing into the close and sticky Santa Fe, nestled low among the slow tributaries of the Parana river.
“I think it might be a bit of a slugathon,” says Jones. “It is very rare that you get two games the same. It is like drinking a beer. The first beer never tastes the same as the second beer, and the third beer never tastes the same as the second one. Rugby is the same. The second game is generally never like the first game. If the first has been open the second has been tighter, so we are prepared for both.”
The return of Chris Robshaw will help with that flexibility, and the new cap Sam Underhill ought to add a level of physicality, albeit of the 20-year-old variety, which these days need not mean the side is compromised. In the backs, Piers Francis comes in at inside-centre for his first start. Having been rejected by English rugby in his teens, he has been schooled in New Zealand and returns quite the complete player.
England and New Zealand, the coming together everyone wants to see. For now, across various continents, they continue their development towards the 2019 World Cup. This tour has increased Jones’s pool of blooded players to more than 60; a second win in Argentina would leave him as satisfied with where England are as he could possibly have hoped to be.
