Coronados de gloria...

Ya deberían saber que aquí no solo se habla de Squeak , la vida es mas
amplia que eso

Ahora que todo termino, vean que se dice en el Times de Londres sobre la
gesta de Los Pumas.

Espero que de una vez por todas aprendamos que no solo sirve ganar y que es
buenísimo festejar terceros (o segundos) lugares al máximo nivel de algo.

Que lo disfruten, aca corte y pegue.

Argentina still worthy despite third placing in series
Stephen Jones

IT IS hardly worth pointing out that the World Cup is a marathon lasting
four years, rather than a sprint. As well as coming with an elevated level
of performance, you have to sustain it and you have to be at your very best,
obviously in the knock-out stages.

Argentina, because they did not make the final, are by those standards
clearly not the best team in the world. But if you judge teams on the
heights they can reach, then for me the Pumas are substantially ahead.
Frankly they may well have been one shoddy performance away from causing the
sporting upset of the decade and beyond. If you saw them play against France
in the opening game, against Ireland, and then again on Friday on a
staggering evening at the Parc de Princes, then you must have realised that
you are in the presence of greatness.

So much for the theory that the Bronze Medal match is simply an
afterthought, something of a gambol and a festival. Argentina and France
went at it on Friday like mad bulls, it was arguably the most ferocious,
fractious and even dirty and angry match of the whole tournament. France
clearly came out desperate to send themselves off with a heavy victory,
their intensity was arguably greater than at any stage in the past six
weeks.

And they were absolutely taken to the cleaners. Argentina absorbed almost
brutal waves of French attacks, notably in an incredible period at the end
of the first half where neither the France attackers or an inadequate trio
of officials would allow Argentina respite. Yet Argentina¹s incredible
defending, and this from a team expected to be out on their feet, mounted
one of the greatest goal-line stands in the history of rugby. They absorbed,
they absolutely refused to let the French back in to the game with a try at
the strategically vital point of the first half whistle.

And like Ali coming off the ropes, they struck with a merciless brilliance
in the second half. They had already shown us that they could play brilliant
rugby with two sensational tries in the first half, by the splendid Felipe
Contepomi, and Omar Hasan, a reserve prop for the Pumas but who shattered
the French scrum.

The second half was almost non-Puma in its style. We saw France launch an
unbelievable barrage of attacks, either from deep or from close-range with
the forwards. All bar one foundered on the best organised and most
courageous defence in France 2007.

And even though one felt cruelly for the French team and nation, who packed
the Parc with high expectations, what followed in the second half was
absolutely magnificent, and it is greatly to the credit of the French crowd
that not only did they refuse to give their own team the bird, but they
warmly applauded Argentina. There were two absolutely brilliant
counter-attacking tries, one each from Federico Martin Aramburu and Ignacio
Corleto. It was a sign of the final disintegration of rugby¹s old order, it
was the transportation of Argentina not only to the Bronze Medal, the very
least they deserved, but towards transports of delight. Their celebrations,
as ever, were almost frenzied.

And afterwards, we had to celebrate not only some of the finest forwards the
game has seen, not only in Gus Pichot¹s the man of the tournament, but also
in the unbelievable Juan Martin Hernandez, a player of sheer brilliance.
Hernandez, for me, already ranks with the all time greats. If his possible
move to Leicester becomes a reality, and bearing in mind the faithfulness of
Leicester supporters, there is simply not a stadium the Tigers can build
that is big enough to take all those people who want to come to see him.

On the other hand, it was somehow appropriate that France, despite all their
efforts, should end as something of a shambles because under the departing
coach, Bernard Laporte, they have become a shambles. Their heritage of
frightening forward power has been betrayed, and even allowing for the
brilliance of the Argentine defence, so has their heritage of pace and
flair.

But a new heritage has been established here. No doubt Pichot and his
colleagues, with a team spirit that was almost terrifying, will look back in
high delight at this successful storming of the ramparts of the old empire.
No doubt, too, they will realise in more quiet and more rational moments,
that their profligate performance against South Africa, when they deserted
their own high standards, may well have cost them the world title.

At the end, one of the Argentine media people reported, having rung home,
that the country had risen as one to celebrate. He may or may not have been
exaggerating, but the truth is that it is impossible to over-estimate the
worth of the Puma¹s in France.