In 2005, The British & Irish Lions played against a national side on home soil for the very first time when Argentina came to town.
Los Pumas had taken on the Lions on three Tours before World War II, but the teams had not met for nearly seven decades.
So when the opportunity presented itself to play the Lions before the touring side departed for New Zealand, the Union Argentina Rugby jumped at the chance.
Marcelo Loffreda, the coach of Los Pumas at the time, who went onto lead the side to their historic third-place finish at the 2007 World Cup, remembers the occasion with fondness.
“That match was organised through the Argentinian Union and the Lions who were preparing for a Tour of New Zealand,” he recalled.
“It was a complete novelty and for the UAR, financially it was really important for Argentina at the time.
“They accepted but there was a problem, we could not call up players who were playing abroad because it was outside the international window. So out of desperation, we had to call up players who were available or in some cases, teams did us a favour by lending us players for a week.
“Some of the clubs in England or France lent us players. In the end, we had quite a competitive team, and we even had to call up players who had not played for Los Pumas for quite a long time. For example, Mauricio Reggiardo (pictured below), who had stopped playing international rugby after 2003 and was playing in France. In 2005, he came back for that game. In some cases, it was really nice for the players who got an opportunity.”
As well as having to cast the net far and wide for their side, the Argentinians had eight days to prepare for the encounter in Cardiff, knowing that the odds were against them.
In order to even the playing field, Loffreda and his coaching staff came up with a novel approach.
He explained: “We had eight days together to prepare for the game. We put a little plan in place, not a trap necessarily, but a plan. Before going to Wales, we did a press conference and said that for us it would be an honour to play against the Lions. It was a privilege but we had to apologise because we didn’t have our best team and we talked about all the weaknesses in our team. We spoke about them so that they would underestimate us.
“When we arrived in Wales, we spoke to the journalists and said the same thing. We were really honoured but the only thing is that we have a team missing lots of our best players because they are playing in playoffs for their clubs.
“We thought it could influence the Lions players who would think, this will be an easy match, we wanted them to think they had won before the game kicked off. We explained everything to the players.”
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How much of an effect the pre-match strategy had is up for debate, but what is beyond question is that Argentina flew out of the blocks.
José María Nuñez Piossek is Argentina’s all-time record try-scorer, and he was not far away from a first try within two minutes. Skipper Felipe Contepomi – one of those players released by his club side, Leinster – tried a grubber down the right, with the ball just beating Nuñez Piossek into touch with the cover defence struggling to get across.
Federico Todeschini slotted an early penalty to give Argentina the lead however, and Nuñez Piossek did not have to wait long for his try.
Contepomi was again heavily involved, collecting the ball from Francisco Leonelli and cutting through on the right before passing to his winger to race over in the corner.
Todeschini converted and Argentina were 10-0 up after just six minutes, stretching that to 13 points with less than a quarter of the game gone.
The Lions responded with a try of their own on 17 minutes, Jonny Wilkinson using the decoy run of Gordon D’Arcy to put Ollie Smith through a gap in the Argentinian defence. The centre powered away to score, with Wilkinson’s conversion cutting the deficit to 13-7.
Argentina, with the returning Reggiardo at tighthead, enjoyed the better of the scrum battle, and Todeschini kicked two more penalties to make it 19-10 with five minutes remaining in the half.
However, two penalties from Wilkinson kept the Lions in touch, trailing by just three at the break, before they levelled the encounter ten minutes into the second half.
Still the visitors battled though, earning two more penalties through their scrum and maul to push their advantage to 25-19.
And while Wilkinson added another penalty of his own to make it a three-point game, Argentina led as the clock entered the red.
It is important to note that 18 years ago, the match clock did not stop for injuries or foul play, with five minutes of injury time added on.
The Lions used all of them, eventually earning a penalty for an offside that gave Wilkinson the chance to earn a draw. From wide on the left, he made no mistake in his first international appearance since the 2003 World Cup final and the teams could not be separated after an entertaining 25-25 draw.
For Loffreda, it is a day that has stayed with him, a unique experience that still resonates with the current Pumas squad, nearly two decades on.
“It was such a special memory,” he said.
“Everyone who was involved that day, we remember it well and often talk about it to the current team. I worked as the team manager for Los Pumas in 2020 and 2021, the players asked me to tell the story about that game. So I told them and we had a lovely time remembering the match. It was an important learning experience for us.
“Seeing the stadium, all the stands with red everywhere, that was striking. Outside the ground as well, in all the pubs, you could see all the fans everywhere. We were there, quite isolated as a squad and that was one of the elements that we focused on to be able to take on this wave of people supporting the Lions.”
