Next Saturday, August 26, the Spanish rugby team will face the Pumas at the Civitas Metropolitano in Madrid before the Argentines travel to France to take part in the rugby World Cup that starts on French soil on September 7. The meeting, organized by the promoter Kiwi House, will become the main act of the centenary of Spanish rugby and will be accompanied by various events organized by the Federation directed by Juan Carlos Martín ‘Hansen’.
The Lions squad that will face the Pumas will be made up of forwards Joaquín Domínguez, Raúl Calzón, Pablo Miejimolle, Lucas Santamaría, Titi Futeu, Álvaro García, Bittor Aboitiz, Alejandro Suárez, Ignacio Piñeiro, José Ramón Borraz, Victor Sánchez, Michael Hogg, Facundo Domínguez, Guillermo Moretón, Raphael Nieto, Mario Pichardie and Matthew Foulds. And in the three quarters appear Tani Bay, Ike Irusta, Gonzalo Vinuesa, Bautista Güemes, Iñaki Mateu, Gonzalo López, Joaquín Gali, Pablo Rascón, Jordi Jorba, Federico Casteglioni, Gabriel Rocaries, John Wessel Bell, Martiniano Cian and Victor Gavin.
Excused Absences
The call has raised some noise on social networks because there are those who missing names like Jon Zabala (Béziers), Joel Merkler (Toulouse), Josh Peters (Bressane), Asier Usárraga (Castres), Ekain Imaz (Biarritz), Kerman Aurrekoetxea (Biarritz), Martín Alonso (Vannes), Samuel Ezeala (Pau). Something surprising that comes to show that the real functioning of the clubs is not known, especially in times of the World Cup, since it is precisely now, when the stars of the clubs leave to participate in the World Cup with their teams, when these Players gain weight and become essential in the club, in many cases earning a contract for the next seasons as rugby professionals.
In any case, the best way to find out the selection criteria for this match is to interview the Federation’s rugby director, José Antonio Barrio, Yunque, and find out first-hand how the call has been configured. “The policy in this call is the same that we are going to have throughout this stage: The best possible players will come at all times. When we got to the national team, we found that there was no player control plan or high performance and we only looked at short-termism and the interest of the absolute. We are laying the foundations so that there is that control and that high-performance structure.”
Case by case: Merkel, Zabala, Ezeala…
We name the conversation. Zabala, Merkler, Usárraga, Kerman, Ezeala… “Obviously we want to count on them and we are going to do it. But before commenting on anything, it would be good to contextualize the situation these players are in right now. It is a crucial situation for their future because the best Spanish players, who are not in the World Cup as far as we know, are now essential for their clubs because many of their teammates are in France to play in the World Cup and the clubs need them now more than ever. They have all reported their absolute commitment to the team, but this match comes in a difficult time situation for them. And it would be very selfish not to understand their position and support them in their decision.
We have no control over those players who are in France or New Zealand, like Alvar who is trying to find a place in a team, and what we must do is support them and keep in touch with them to monitor their evolution and help them. And of all the cases, the most obvious is that of the first rows, Zabala and Merkel, who are also right-handers, with the importance that we know they have. They are not only members of the staff of their clubs, it is that in addition They are important players and they are risking their contract at their club. And all this happens for not being in the worldBecause if we played the World Cup that the players won on the field, they would all be focused on the team. But the situation is what it is…”
Questioned about the context of the game with the Pumas, Yunque affirmed that “we are not throwing away the game. We are going to work to be competitive and, above all, to learn a lot. It is a very important game in sports for us and our players. World Rugby knows that this could happen with the World Cup on the horizon. I have heard and read that ‘we are going to throw away the party’ and even that we should look for ‘express nationalizations’, coming from where we come from. Even that we should recover veterans who are already out, but they have opted to be coherent. This match combines the local and international environment. Competition and high performance. The game is important because it will be a Spanish rugby party. A sports party, where very important people from our rugby are going to be honored, and a sports party with a team that is going to be very important in the World Cup ahead. Our players will put their hearts and souls into it and I hope for a beautiful match, in which you have to enjoy”.
For the RFER rugby director, ‘real’ for a few months, the match against the Pumas “will be the beginning of a new era. The first step on the road to play a World Cup again. We will remember this day. It will be a turning point regardless of the result.” His words denote an optimism that does not sit well with the skepticism of national rugby, jaded after the two eliminations from the World Cups due to the continued negligence of the previous federation. Barrio bases his optimism on ” in the passion that we are putting into this project and the confidence in the Spanish player. People from outside who have joined the group or advise us tell us to be calm, that this is the way and all that remains is to continue working to implement the structure and get revenue from the quality of the national product. We have also detected a disenchantment in international rugby, because they told us that they see that we have good players, we have an obvious power as a country, but when the World Cups arrive we are never there”.
He talks about structure and a model and there is talk of copying the Argentine model of Pladares, the Uruguayan variant, the Chilean success… Yunque explains the evolution in which they are working: “The project coexists with the competition and the clubs, the modernization in the centers with young talents and high performance, and it does so transversally, working with the Sub-20, the emerging and the absolute combined. There is talk of calling this game against the Pumas, but the key point will be November. World Rugby has invented a window especially for us, and the United States, in which we will have matches against rivals of a level to which we will be able to summon club players”.
Uruguayan, Chilean, Fiji model?
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And he sets a milestone in the path “of this process”: “The best thing that will happen there is because the three groups (Under-20, Emerging and absolute) will be working together, creating two teams and seeing how players jump from one to another naturally. And then Pablo Bouzas will arrive, the Argentine coach, who will participate in the World Cup as an assistant in Uruguay, who will take over as coach and take charge. “When the new coach arrives, you have to listen to him and see what profiles he wants. But we will work transversally with the three teams and with a team of coaches who are already doing it and he will be able to clarify things or have the resources he needs”.
Recovering the question of the model, Yunque elaborates: “The first thing we did when Raúl ‘Aspirina’ arrived was to travel throughout Spain so that he could see the different conditions and sensitivities and confirm that Spain is different from Argentina in terms of sports, geography, demographics and structural. The Pladares model cannot be replicated, but successful initiatives such as this one can be taken to implement them here and, as in the Pumas, working with talented players from a young age until taking them to the national team. We are going to try to reproduce realities that have turned out well in Argentina or models that we know have produced revenues in other places such as Uruguay or Chile. In this we have the advantage of having Daniel Hourcade as a technical advisor for the Wolrd Rugby area, who gives us inputs, although we are all clear that the Spanish reality is different. But we are not going to confine ourselves only to that environment because there are other initiatives like the Fiji franchises that we also find interesting.”
2023-08-17 12:42:39
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