Felipe Contepomi explains Connacht star's omission from Argentina squad to face Ireland
Connacht's Santiago Cordero scored a try in Argentina's win over Italy last weekend but is surplus to requirements for the Pumas visit to the Aviva Stadium on Friday night
Felipe Contepomi says it was a tactical decision to leave out Connacht's back three star Santiago Cordero from his matchday squad to face Ireland at the Aviva Stadium.
Contepomi has made three changes to the side that beat Italy last Saturday. "No, he's not injured, actually he's in great form," said the former Leinster backs coach on Cordero's omission.
The 30-year-old winger made a try-scoring contribution off the bench in the 50-18 victory in Udine and was expected to be involved again this week.
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"Yes, there are a few changes but that's because these guys compete really hard with each other throughout the week and we always try to field the best 23 that we think out of this group of 32 can represent us the best," added Contepomi, speaking in Dublin this morning after announcing his squad.
"In this case Santi didn't make it. He had a great game last weekend and we know we can count on him and he's really training really well, but we made other selections, it's more tactical around strategy, Santi Cahas come back and we think he can give us something from the bench."
Vice-captain Pablo Matera returns to the back row after he was suspended for the Italy game. Matthias Moroni has been selected at inside centre at Matias Orlando's expense while Guido Petti is added to the second row.
The Pumas have beaten South Africa, New Zealand and Australia in the Rugby Championship this year and are full of confidence as they attempt to beat Ireland for the first time in Dublin.
"Yeah, results gives you confidence, definitely," he said. "But it's more, for us, progress is trying to do what we say we are going to do - or trying to do what we train to do - and then go and do it on match day.
"That's the tough thing in rugby or in any sport. So, for us, the confidence comes in doing. We evaluate maybe different to how people from the outside evaluate us. I know you go a lot on results, we go more on performance and we have certain things that we look at that it doesn't matter about results.
"I'll give you a very simple example. We beat South Africa in Santiago but it came up to the last minute where (Mannie) Libbock missed a penalty. What if he would have got that penalty? Would have that changed our way of evaluating ourselves?
"No, we don't change the way we evaluate ourselves. Now from the outside, you change the evaluation because you say, 'oh, you beat the double world champions', you know.
"For us it's the same, how we evaluate. So we understand that, the way we evaluate, we know we are in progress because the things we say we are going to do, we are doing them more frequently than not on game day."
Ireland boss Andy Farrell will name his team at 2pm today.
Argentina: Juan Cruz Mallia, Rodrigo Isgro, Lucio Cinti, Matthias Moroni, Bautista Delguy, Thomas Albornoz, Gonzalo Bertranou; Thomas Gallo, Julian Montoya, Joel Sclavi, Guido Petti, Pedro Rubiolo, Pablo Matera, Juan Martin Gonzalez, Joaquin Oviedo.
Replacements: Ignacio Ruiz, Ignacio Streets, Francisco Gomez Kodela, Franco Molina, Santiago Grondona, Gonzalo Garcia, Santiago Carreras, Justo Piccardo.
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