1 week Ago By Irishexaminer.com
He might be well settled back in his homeland at this point, but Ireland is a country that still retains a special place in the heart of Argentinian head coach Felipe Contepomi. After arriving from Bristol in 2003, the Buenos Aires native enjoyed a six-year stint as a Leinster player – amassing an impressive tally of 1,225 points across 116 appearances. During his time on these shores, he was also conferred with the medical degrees of MB BCh BAO and LRCP & SI by the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and subsequently worked in Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.
He later returned to Leinster as an assistant coach in 2018, before reuniting with his former Leinster head coach Michael Cheika in the Argentinian set-up four years later. He went on to assume the Pumas hot seat when the Australian stepped away at the end of last year’s World Cup, but while tomorrow evening will see Contepomi leading his side into battle against Ireland at the Aviva Stadium, he admitted that he still has a soft spot for this nation. “It’s always good to be back in Dublin.
I love Dublin and Ireland. I’ve had time to catch up with a few old friends with the excitement of being here with my national team. It’s great to be here playing against Ireland with Argentina,” Contepomi said at a press conference in Stillorgan’s Radisson Blu Hotel yesterday.
“I caught up with Leo [Cullen] and some other friends. I still have a few to go. Luckily I have a long list [of friends] to catch up with.
I've got one son and a daughter who were born in Ireland as well. Unluckily they are not Irish because of the rules or whatever, but many milestones in my life happened here in Ireland. “I spent 10 years here.
It's a lot of my adulthood. I'm 47 so say from 17 to here, 10 years is a third of my life in Dublin. So it's a lot and I'm grateful.
I've got really good memories, fond memories.” Thanks to a combination of his time working as a coach in Leinster and the fact that the province tends to have a sizable contingent within the Ireland squad, Contepomi has a strong knowledge of the opposition line-up for tomorrow’s Test. In total, there are 16 Leinster players in the Irish matchday 23 for their clash against the Pumas with potential debutant Sam Prendergast the only one of that particular cohort who didn’t make a senior appearance during Contepomi’s time in the Blues’ backroom team.
Yet given he won’t be the one in the white heat of battle at the Lansdowne Road venue tomorrow night, the Pumas supremo was doing his best to play down the idea that knowing the vast majority of the Ireland team is an advantage. “Maybe it could have been an advantage if I could have played. You can know the players and I've coached them, but it's our players who need to go and do their homework and know who they are playing against.
“So I don't know if it's an advantage. It's the same way as those players know how I think as well, so it works both ways. I wouldn't put it as an advantage.
At the end of the day, it's the individual and collective preparation of the players that can make the difference.” Though it remains to be seen if he will end up embracing the coaching side of rugby to the same degree as his Argentine counterpart, Contepomi’s former provincial teammate Jonathan Sexton has been involved with the Ireland squad in recent weeks in a part-time mentoring role. Contepomi has kept in touch with the Dubliner since his departure from the Leinster set-up in 2022 and believes his presence in the Irish camp can only be a bonus for Andy Farrell and his fellow coaches.
“I think it is great for rugby, for him and for Ireland to have him around. He is a brilliant rugby brain and if he can transmit to the players what he could do on the pitch, only 10 percent of what he could do, it would be great for any player,” Contepomi added..
