Scotland wary of Argentina revival

Scotland coach Andy Robinson has told his players to forget last weekend’s convincing win over Argentina when the two teams meet in a return match this Saturday.

“That’s in the past now,” Robinson said. “It’s a new game on Saturday. The scoreboard starts at 0-0 and the Pumas await.”

Argentina eliminated Scotland in the quarterfinals of the 2007 Word Cup, and have won three of their five matches against the Scots since then.

The Scotland team that will play the Pumas at the Atlantic resort city of Mar del Platais on Saturday will be a little different to the one that won 26-14 last week.

Captain Chris Cusiter has been ruled out with a persistent knee injury and will return home, leaving Rory Lawson to come in at scrumhalf.

“Chris trained yesterday, but was not really ready to perform in a match this weekend having been out for seven weeks,” Robinson said. “We knew it was going to be touch and go for him to be ready, but part of the reason he came out here was that he would receive regular treatment.”

Simon Danielli will win his 26th cap on the left wing in a restructured backline that has Sean Lamont moving to the right wing and Max Evans shifting to outside centre.

Utility back Nick De Luca has been dropped to the bench, joining front rower Alasdair Dickinson, who has recovered from a stomach illness and replaces Geoff Cross among the reserves.

The Pumas made two changes in its starting line-up, with Agustin Figuerola stepping in for injured scrumhalf Alfredo Lalanne and Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino selected on the wing to replace Lucas Borges, who moves to the bench.

Lock Santiago Guzman and winger Rafael Carballo replace Mariano Galarza and Ignacio Mieres on the substitutes bench, while Nicolas Vergallo is reserve scrumhalf.

Argentina led early last week but conceded too many penalties and allowed Scotland flyhalf Dan Parks to kick the visitors to a convincing victory.

“We’re still angry. We took the initiative for most of the match, we planned to attack but they played off of our mistakes,” said center Gonzalo Tiesi, who scored one of the Pumas’ two tries.

“We gave away a lot of penalties, and when you lose because of your own mistakes, that makes you even more angry.”

Argentina coach Santiago Phelan said his team simply didn’t play well in the first Test.

“We’re worried that we didn’t keep our concentration throughout the game. When we’ve got the ball, we need to control it better and when we don’t, we need to organise ourselves well,” Phelan said.

“We’ve looked at the penalties, spoken to referees and invited a referee to work with us in training so we don’t commit the same mistakes in the future.”

Line-ups:

Argentina: Martin Rodriguez, Lucas Gonzalez Amorosino, Gonzalo Tiesi, Santiago Fernandez, Horacio Agulla, Felipe Contepomi (captain), Agustin Figuerola; Rodrigo Roncero, Mario Ledesma, Martin Scelzo, Manuel Carizza, Patricio Albacete, Genaro Fessia, Juan Manuel Leguizamon, Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe.

Reserves: Agustin Creevy, Marcos Ayerza, Santiago Guzman, Alejandro Campos, Nicolas Vergallo, Rafael Carballo, Lucas Borges.

Scotland: Hugo Southwell, Sean Lamont, Max Evans, Graeme Morrison, Simon Danielli, Dan Parks, Rory Lawson; Allan Jacobsen, Ross Ford, Moray Low, Jim Hamilton, Alastair Kellock (captain), Kelly Brown, John Barclay, Johnnie Beattie.

Reserves: Scott Lawson, Alasdair Dickinson, Scott MacLeod, Alasdair Strokosch, Mike Blair, Phil Godman, Nick De Luca.