Contepomi guarded on chance of facing Scotland

A HUGE break for Scotland – or is it? In weeks like this, when mind games over selection tend to be rampant, it’s as well to balance things up by putting everything you are told into one hand while placing a large dose of salt in the other. In fairness, though, there are real concerns in the Argentina camp about the rib injury that forced Felipe Contepomi off the field after 20 minutes of the England game in week one, which happens to seem like several moons ago in World Cup time.

In conversation yesterday, Contepomi, the brilliant captain of the Pumas, genuinely sounded like a man who was losing the battle to be fit for Seismic Sunday and the critical game against Scotland. Contepomi, 72 caps and a talisman almost from his first days in the Argentina side away back in 1998, suffered his rib injury and hasn’t been seen in competitive action, or even in full-contact in training, ever since.

“Even if he can’t play, he will play,” said a team-mate the other day. It has to be said, though, that Contepomi himself didn’t sound so sure on the subject when he sat down to chat at the team hotel in the middle of downtown Wellington.

“I’m not 100 per cent fit, because I’m not training,” he said. “The injury is coming on well, so hopefully I will be okay on Sunday. I need to test myself and I will leave that until the end of the week.”

The test, he smiled, would constitute one of the heaviest Puma forwards running at him at speed just to see how he fared in the tackle. He suggested that the splendid Patricio Albacete was the perfect man for the job. “If I can tackle him, I can tackle anybody.”

But there was more.

“It’s a race against myself in terms of wanting to play. You have to do what’s best for the team and, if you’re not nearly 100 per cent, then you’re not fit to play – and you shouldn’t play. The players that are playing at the moment are in really good form and we can field a very competitive team. We try not to depend on individuality.

“When you decide to play in a team sport you have to be prepared to give your best, not for yourself but for the team. And if the best is for me to play, I will definitely play, but the crucial moment, and most difficult moment, in sport is to accept that you’re injured and that’s it.

“Either way, I’m truly confident in all members of the team. If I’m fit to play, I will play. If I’m not, I’m sure we will still be competitive. It’s not about one player.It’s very frustrating, though. To arrive fully fit and then to get a stupid injury after 20 minutes and to miss one game (against Romania) and maybe another (against Scotland). . .

“The key thing is to accept reality and be positive. If it happens, great. If not, I have full confidence in the players and I hope we can win the game.”

Contepomi is a hard man to read sometimes. He’s extremely bright and extremely mischievous. In his years at Leinster he developed a reputation for being a bit of a wind-up merchant, particularly when it came to getting into the head of his opposite number at Munster, Ronan O’Gara.

He is not beyond a game of psychological warfare. If he was “at it” this time, then he was engaging in a game, not of belittlement of the Scots, but of attempted death by love-bombing.

“It’s not about what Scotland have done in last two games in this World Cup,” he said, “because they’ve played with nearly two different teams. It’s more to do with what they have done for the last year and a half, or two years. And they have done a lot. They’ve changed their team (after the Romania opener) and yet they looked really strong in every part of the pitch. So they have a lot of quality and a lot of competition for places. They are ranked above us. That means they are better than us. If you take the results of the last two-three years, definitely they are better. The last two games we played, they’ve beaten us, that’s the cruel reality. Having said that, I’m not saying that we can’t beat them. The only thing that counts is us trying to play our best 80 minutes of the last four years.”

The weather forecast for Sunday is for greasy conditions, which only adds to the feeling that this game is going to be owned by the forwards and not the backs. It’s a feeling shared, in part, by the great Puma.

“New Zealand is never the sunniest. We might have rain and wind. I always say you win and lose games in the tight five. By how much, it depends on how the backs play. Rugby has always been like that. Scotland always play well with their forwards, so probably it will be a gruesome battle and that’s what rugby is about and we are looking forward to that. They (Scotland) have a great coach. For me, one of the best worldwide. It’s a team that’s really well-prepared.”

You see? Not a word out of place, not a single sentence that can be used against him by a Scottish camp that is forever on the look-out for slights that might be used as extra motivation. Contepomi was hugely respectful but also completely honest in his assessment of certain aspects of Argentina’s preparation.

He talked, for instance, about their lack of game-time when compared to teams like Scotland, pointing out that, since Argentina made the semi-final sof the World Cup four years ago, they have played only 19 serious Test matches whereas Scotland have played 35.

“The team from 2007 prepared for eight years,” he said. “This one is a new team and the key is the time you can pass together. Between the two World Cups we have only had 18 Test matches (he’s mistaken, it’s 19, but it’s hardly a big difference) and that would mean 18 weeks together (or 19). That’s all we’ve had in four years. It’s not too much, you know?

“But now that we’ve spent two and a half months together in training, we’re getting to know each other, I’m working personally with players that I have never even gone into a match with before. It’s quite crazy when you tell it like that. The time we spent together is good. We prepared according to our resources and have made the most out of it.

A new team, perhaps, but one with a hardcore of experience up front, which is handy, given that Contepomi believes that the forwards are going to decide the outcome on Sunday. “Maybe by being old, it brings experience, and you can’t buy experience,” he says of the likes of Mario Ledesma (38) and Rodrigo Roncero (34) and Martin Scelzo (35). In fairness, Contepomi was always liable to stick up for the old guard given that he is 34 years old himself and is one of the few guys in this tournament who is playing in his fourth World Cup.

“I’m not worried about how old you are,” he says. “I’m more worried about how fit and how well prepared you are. The older guys in the squad are the fittest, the ones that prepared the most, the ones who made most sacrifices to arrive well to this World Cup, the ones who know where they come from and what this World Cup is about. Ledesma is playing his fourth World Cup, Scelzo his fourth, Roncero and Albacete their third. You can’t buy that experience. I wouldn’t worry if people say they are old. It’s about 80 minutes and all of them are prepared to play.”

Contepomi is prepared to play, too. But will he? The ribs are sore and he won’t be training until the end of the week. The clock is ticking for the captain, the inspiration, the essence of this Pumas side. As the countdown continues, Contepomi’s fight for fitness has become a key part of a developing narrative.