The young Pumas take on the French whilst the Wallabies, who were pipped in the dying minutes by England on Saturday, take on one of the success stories of the tournament to date, Samoa.
The French, without three players suspended following last weekend’s post-match fracas with Wales, have been forced into significant changes although Mathieu Bastareaud, who missed the Wales pool game, comes back into the frame.
Argentina Assistant Coach Diego Albanese said: “We were competitive for the first 20 minutes against the All Blacks, but we lost two key players in our pack and we started to miss one on one tackles. However, it was a great experience for the boys to play this team and we hope they will learn from a top team as we move forward.”
And fly half Benjamín Madero added: “We are very disappointed but New Zealand are a great team and they played very well, they deserved to win. Now we have two very important matches and we are planning to win them both. We have to work on some errors to try not to make so many mistakes.”
The Pumas, despite beaten 60-0 by the All Blacks, will be a tough nut to crack, whilst in the other game, the Wallabies will be desperate to erase the bitter memory of last weekend’s last gasp defeat at the hands of England.
Leading with just three minutes remaining, the green and golds conceded a charge down try to go down 18-13. It was desperately disappointing for a side with such expectation. However, they can certainly go some way towards easing the pain by beating Samoa tomorrow evening.
Coach Brian Melrose said; “It was a great match but we couldn’t get into the first half. We were pressured into making far too many mistakes by England and that is something we will need to cut out.”
The Samoans, who defeated Scotland and USA in their opening games, pushed South Africa all the way last weekend and certainly won’t sit back and allow the Australians to dominate.
Wednesday 18th June – Liberty Stadium, Swansea
Argentina v France – kick-off 5pm
Samoa v Australia – kick-off 7pm
