Michael Cheika, the Australian coach of Argentina, revealed this Wednesday his team composition to face England in the small final of the Rugby World Cup, which will take place on Friday at the Stade de France. He made three changes. Pedro Rubiolo replaces Tomas Lavanini in the second row, Tomas Cubelli replaces Gonzalo Bertranou at scrum-half and Jeronimo de la Fuente takes the place of Santiago Chocobares at first center. Jeronimo de la Fuente will play his second match in the competition after captaining the team against Chile.
Note that 19 of the 23 players selected for this small final were present during the first day’s match, lost against England (10-27). The only new faces are second row Pedro Rubiolo, third row center Facundo Isa, center Jeronimo de la Fuente and fly half Nicolas Sanchez on the bench. Marcos Kremer and Juan Martin Gonzalez are the only two Pumas players to have started every match this edition.
Julian Montoya will wear the Pumas captain’s armband at the World Cup for the sixth time. Only Agustin Pichot did better (8), notably being captain of the team which finished third in 2007 against the XV of France. If he comes into play, hooker Agustin Creevy will equal England flanker Jason Leonard and New Zealand flanker Richie McCaw, becoming the third player to have played the most World Cup matches (22).
Emiliano Boffelli is the best Pumas director in this World Cup with 57 points. He is only the fourth Argentinian to exceed the fifty points mark after Gonzalo Quesada (102 points in 1999), Felipe Contepomi (91 points in 2007) and Nicolas Sanchez (97 points in 2015). Boffelli scored 25 of Argentina’s 30 points in the last victory against England in 2022 (29-30 at Twickenham).
1 Thomas Gallo, 2 Julian Montoya (c), 3 Francisco Gómez Kodela, 4 Guido Petti Pagadizabal, 5 Pedro Rubiolo, 6 Juan Martin Gonzalez, 7 Marcos Kremer, 8 Facundo Isa, 9 Tomas Cubelli, 10 Santiago Carreras, 11 Mateo Carreras, 12 Jeronimo de la Fuente, 13 Lucio Cinti, 14 Emiliano Boffelli, 15 Juan Cruz Mallia
Substitutes: 16 Augustine Creevy, 17 Joel Sclavi, 18 Eduardo Bello, 19 Matthias Germanno, 20 Rodrigo Bruni, 21 Lautaro Bazan Velez, 22 Nicolas Sanchez, 23 Matthias Moroni
