Hello. Welcome to Telegraph Sport’s coverage of today’s World Cup quarter-final as Pool C winners Wales take on Pool D runners-up Argentina in Marseille.
The trajectories of these two proud rugby nations have diverged over the past year. Eleven months ago Wales was in dire straits. Under manager Wayne Pivac, they had fallen to ninth in the standings with 13 wins, 20 losses and one draw, including a loss to Italy in the Six Nations.
Pivac’s tenure reached its nadir with a 13-12 loss to Georgia in the Duchy, an ignominious result that marked the end of his reign and the return of veteran campaigner Warren Gatland.
However, despite the change in leadership, the team showed little sign of improvement, picking up just one win in the 2023 Six Nations. Off-pitch drama looks set to engulf the national team as a female staffer accuses the Welsh Rugby Union of sexism and is threatened with a pay cut, prompting calls for a player strike ahead of the England match. There were also some scenes. The match went ahead after 11 hours of talks.
But as Wales prepare for their World Cup training camp, there are whispers of a comeback in the Valley. Word of Gatland’s grueling training regimen quickly spread, as the old general sought to get his troops into shape ahead of their re-emergence on the world stage. In July, he wrote about the benefits of “stress training” on these pages under an image of a cartoonishly muscular Gareth Davies.
Whatever Gatland’s method was, it worked. Emerging from the summer chrysalis, Wales went from a potential laughing stock to a complete revelation in France.
Few players were more influential than Captain Jack Morgan in his transformation from hapless castaway to battle-hardened warrior. The indomitable back-rower is the youngest World Cup captain at 23 years old. But what he’s lacked in recent years he more than makes up for in all-round skill and leadership.
He led his team to a 32-26 win over Fiji, followed by a 28-8 win over Portugal, and then showed his full potential as Wales achieved a record 40-6 win over Australia. . One minute he was burying his head in the breakdown and forcing a turnover, and the next he was up 50-22, something Antoine Dupont would be proud of. All the while sporting the bloody nose of a Celtic warrior. “It’s just a scratch,” I imagine him saying, like Monty Python’s Black Knight.
Wales completed their pool stage victory with a comfortable 43-19 victory over Georgia in Nantes last Saturday.
On the other hand, as for Argentina, I feel that it peaked too early. Last August, they climbed the dizzying heights of rugby’s Olympus to record their second victory against New Zealand. This, on top of their win against the All Blacks in 2020, added to the feeling that Los Pumas might finally shed the underdog tag at this World Cup.
But since then, they’ve simmered down. Despite pushing South Africa to the brink in July, the South American team’s only wins against Tier 1 countries were against duds Australia and England.
After losing their opening match to England in the World Cup pool stages and showing an unconvincing performance against Samoa, Argentina defeated Japan 39-27 in Nantes six days earlier to advance to the second Pool D quarter-final. He made a comeback to earn the right to participate.
Wales had the upper hand in the match against Los Pumas, having won 22 Tests between the two teams, including both their previous Rugby World Cup encounters in 1991 and 1999 (the first full Test meeting). They have an advantage with 15 wins and 1 draw.
However, despite looking somewhat off-kilter, the Argentine squad still had a number of players in the 2015 season, including centurions Agustín Creevy and Nicolas Sanchez, Facundo Isa and captain Julián Montoya, to name a few. They have all the veterans from when they defeated Ireland in 2015 and advanced to the semi-finals. . These players know what it takes to reach the World Cup semi-finals, but they may never get that chance again.
If we win today, we will advance to the last four and face either Ireland or New Zealand in Saint-Denis.
“They have a good defense and a good fixed formation. Our first plan is not for us to stop them, but for them to stop us,” said Argentina national team head coach Michael Cheika. said.
“If we can execute a strategy that we think is good for this game, we will have some advantage. If they impose a strategy, it could be a long afternoon.
“It was a big boost for us to get to the quarterfinals. The most important thing is knowing what we want to do and being able to do it.”
Wales fly-half Dan Biggar said: “I don’t think anything of it. I don’t want this to be my last day as a Welsh rugby player.
“There will be some pressure for us to finish after the World Cup, but it’s also a big motivation.
“The last thing I want is to lose in the quarter-finals on my last day as a Welsh rugby player.”