All or nothing for straight-talking Lobbe

IN WORD and deed, Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe is as direct as they come, a straight talker as much as a hard runner. Yesterday, in the southern suburbs of Wellington, in a place called Newtown Parks, the Argentina No 8 and vice-captain came under siege, the Pumas press conference rivalling its All Black equivalent for sheer weight of numbers.

No other country has a travelling media posse quite like the Argentines, not the French, not the English, not the Australians, not the South Africans and most definitely not the Scots. Quite frankly, to be in the company of this army of Puma worshippers was bordering on the electric.

At the heart of it, of course, was Felipe Contepomi and his damaged ribs. The captain sauntered to the sideline to get his injury wrapped in something that looked like clingfilm, upon which he applied a bag of ice to the sorest spot on his right side and then quickly pulled his jersey down over the ice in the laughable hope that nobody saw him do it. The entire audience stood rapt. Contepomi’s rib area looked red and sore. He no more looked ready for a Test match than he did for the World Rib-Punching Championships, but the great man is playing none the less.

It’s as well, though, that Argentina have a second world class leader in their ranks just in case Contepomi happens to meet with a nasty accident on the way to his first collision and has to go off. Lobbe doesn’t muck about when it comes to describing what’s at stake on Sunday evening at the Cake Tin. “If we win, we keep on dreaming,” he said. “If not, it’s over. Scotland will have another chance against England, but for us, this is it. It’s a final.

“Of course, they could have scored more tries but they have the wins and that’s the most important thing. In a World Cup you just want to win; 3-0 will do me, it’ll do me perfectly. I know Scotland are a really good team. Every time we play them it’s really tough.

“We have immense respect for Scotland, really good team. Going to have a good game. We will start feeling those little things in the stomach, that’s because of the occasion. We’ll be nervous, but in a good way. We’ll have that fire and power inside that makes you go the extra yard. We came to play a long tournament, so we need to win or it’s over.”

There are few, if any, players in the world who know more about playing against the Scots than Lobbe of Toulon. He has played 42 times for Argentina and seven of those caps have come against Scotland, three of them won and four of them lost. He knows the reality of this fixture. In their history, the countries have only ever met a dozen times and ten of those games have ended with a points difference in single figures; four points separating the sides the last time they met, eight points the time before that and only three in the Test that went before.

These games are so tightly fought and so narrowly won that there is an argument that says it is the most evenly-matched Test rivalry in world rugby. “Every time we play Scotland I can assure you we finish very, very tired and bruised because they are a physical side and we know that if want to win and progress in the World Cup, first of all we need to win the battle up front against them,” said Lobbe. “We need to be direct and be very intense in our defence. Everything is important against Scotland; every tackle, every kick. We will try to win field position, play in right areas and score with every opportunity.”

Lobbe was in the Argentina side that beat Scotland in the quarter-final four years ago. Not only was he immense in that game, and that World Cup, he also celebrated it in his own unique way. He came through the media mixed zone in the aftermath of the victory over Scotland with a giant fluffy Tiger head on his shoulders, a gift from a fan. Some of his team-mates were so high on emotion having reached their first World Cup semi-final that they could hardly get the words out, such were their tears. But Lobbe spoke clearly, or as clearly as it was possible to do given the get-up on his head. “It was a very close match,” he recalls of the 2007 quarter-final. “We ended up defending close to our goal-line, defending with everything we had. And we ended up winning. There was great happiness.”

Lobbe made no secret of his surprise at Scotland’s team selection. Two decisions in particular, the first to omit Nathan Hines in the second row and the second to leave out Dan Parks. The call at fly-half was a particular eye-opener given that Parks was the fly-half in the last two meetings of the countries, both in Argentina. The Scots won both, of course.

“I thought Hines was going to start and they were going to try and have the biggest pack they could get. From what I’ve read, they’re going to try and move the ball around and they’ve backed up their words with the team selection.

“I thought they were going to go with Parks because of his experience but [Ruaridh] Jackson has played very well in the Six Nations and he played really well against Romania in the first game. They’re both really good players but, yeah, it did surprise me.”

What is also somewhat surprising is the sight of Contepomi nursing his ribs and admitting that he will require injections to make it on Sunday while also saying it still hurts when he tries to pass the ball. A tactical masterstroke or a reckless error? “Felipe is completely important,” he said. “He’s our captain, our leader. He’s our soul, he’s very, very important. He leads from the front every time, he has that magic that it’s not easy to have in a rugby player. We’re very happy that he’s going to be out there with us.” Clingfilm Man (Contepomi) is one of ten of the Argentina Test side that went down in flames to Scotland in the summer of 2010 who will be playing on Sunday, so it’s legitimate to ask what relevance the bitterness of Tucuman and Mar del Plata will have come Sunday. “Revenge,” says Lobbe, “is not a word you would normally use in rugby. It’s a game of rugby, 80 minutes and it’s done. We have good confidence since we came together on July 3 and we are going to put everything into it.

“We have improved as a team. We’ve created a human bond and you can feel it on the pitch and you start to feel in a way invincible when everybody is putting their soul and heart into the team. It’s going to be really, really tough.”

They can feel invincible? You wouldn’t hear one of the Scottish leaders speaking that way about his own players. Different cultures, of course. But the same pressure. It’s a game not just for talent but for heart and on both counts Argentina have a proven warrior in Lobbe.