Felipe Contepomi’s side pulled off a surprise win over the Lions at the Aviva Stadium ahead of the 2025 Tour to Australia

As ever, how Argentina rock up to the Aviva Stadium for Friday’s Nations Championship encounter against Ireland (kick-off 8.10pm) is both hard to predict and intriguing.

With the newly enlisted Shaun Edwards watching on from his seat in the stand at the UCD Bowl, head coach Felipe Contepomi cut a relaxed figure at the end of Argentina’s training session with his 33-man squad, who ply their trade in eight different countries.

Logistically, drawing from such a disparate global base must be the most challenging task in world rugby, but Contepomi and the Pumas generally find a way. To that end, they had a three-day get-together in London last week before arriving in Dublin on Sunday.

True, they have lost to Ireland on all 11 visits to Dublin, but they did spoil the Lions’ send-off to Australia, when a hastily assembled team beat Andy Farrell’s side 28-24 with a typically daring brand of rugby.

The 25-year-old Newcastle scrumhalf Simón Benitez Cruz made his debut off the bench that night. Alongside him, the 27-year-old Leicester backrower Joaquín Moro earned his second cap. Both typify the late developers from the Argentinian amateur club and semi-pro franchise pathway, who often prove bargain signings.

Each come from rugby families. For Benitez Cruz, his grandfather and father were also scrumhalves, as is his younger brother. They all came through their local club in Buenos Aires, Cuba (Club Universitario de Buenos Aires), typical of Argentinian rugby’s community and family-based loyalty to the sport.

“I started playing rugby when I was six years old, so it’s a long journey for me and professional rugby is pretty new, but the way we prepare amateur rugby in Argentina is pretty professional,” said Benitez Cruz. “The only thing is that we don’t get paid. It’s a great journey for me.”

He actually abandoned rugby at 22 to go surfing in Australia for a couple of years. He returned home and started up a furniture business when he began playing in the semi-professional Super Rugby Americas (SRA) with Pampas XV. He was then recruited by Tarucas for their debut SRA season and became the league’s most valuable player by the end of the season, earning him a call-up to the Pumas.

“Two years ago, when Felipe called me and told me I could be in the squad, that changed my life. I trained really hard to be here, so it’s an honour now to be here.”

He joined Newcastle in 2025 and his career has since taken off. Contepomi admires his intelligence, bravery and skill set, seeing him quickly accumulate 16 caps, nine of which were as the starting nine.

Contepomi’s decision to bring Edwards on board appears popular with the players. “He’s putting a lot of detail into D [defence], so it’s great having him here. He’ll loves to work really hard, so we like that,” said Benitez Cruz.

Of his head coach, he added: “He’s also into detail. He’s really passionate and he loves [defence] and he’s really into making us grow in defence so we can attack from there.

“He loves to play with space. First play with space and then with the system, so that makes us free to play too.”

Moro also comes from a rugby family, but comes from less fertile rugby territory south of Buenos Aires, so his talent was spotted later.

“I went to the stadium to watch the Pumas a lot of times when I was young, but I never imagined to be in this place, sharing a team with a lot of players that I loved to see when I was young. It’s a dream come true.”

Making the Argentina under-20s was a turning point in his career, but it was also an eye-opener. “When I played there, I saw very far the distance from playing for Pumas. I think in 2023, when I started playing semi-professional in Argentina with Pampas in the Super Americas, I think it’s a shorter distance to Pumas from where I was playing.”

Contepomi likens the standard of the SRA to New Zealand’s NPC provincial level. Like his head coach, Moro’s diversion from rugby was medicine, the difference being that he abandoned his studies.

“I studied medicine when I was like from 18 to 22, but then I dropped [out] because of this [rugby]. It’s difficult to have the same time with rugby and going to the hospital. It was tough.”

He’s not sure whether he will resume his studies, but for right now, his focus is purely on rugby.

“There is a lot of history of Argentinian players being [with Leicester]. Pablo Montoya was the captain two years ago. It was a very big change for me, but they gave me a lot of things to grow in my rugby, like the DNA of Leicester playing the set piece, the ruck, the contact.”

Looking ahead to his first meeting with Ireland, Moro said: “I expect a very intense game. I think Argentina and Ireland have a similar way to play rugby, so I think it’s going to be very tough – the contact, the one-v-one in the game.”