Rugby Models Around the World – Argentina

A Look at Argentine Rugby Through Telegraph Interview with Les Cusworth: What’s the Canadian Perspective

I came across this article through Karl Fix who is planning on taking a U19 team down to Argentina in 2026 and his contact there is Les Cusworth. From a Canadian perspective we’re always looking for lessons that can be learned and applied to make our rugby better, specifically our men’s XVs program, which has hit a low patch. So what is Argentina doing right and what might be relevant in a BC and Canadian context? As a side note I’ll have an opportunity to have a chat with Les Cusworth, so if readers have additional questions they would like me to ask, mention them in the comments or email editor@bcrugbynews.com

For some context, Les came to Argentina at a time when the Union Argentina de Rugby (UAR), was going through some difficulty. The excerpt below, plus link gives some background. 

Argentina’s national rugby team, also known as Los Pumas, faced a serious financial crisis in 2006. The Union Argentina de Rugby (UAR) was facing a seizure of its bank accounts due to a debt of 1.6 million Argentinian pesos after losing a court case related to a young player’s injury. This financial strain was exacerbated by broader economic issues in Argentina at the time, including a monetary crisis and high inflation. 

Reading through the Telegraph article (posted and linked below) raised some interesting points:

• the game in Argentina remains amateur, even the Super Rugby Americas franchises are not considered fully professional. Reaching out to well known rugby pundits covering South American rugby, I got confirmation that the SRA teams could be categorized as semi-professional.
• the rugby density, 3 rugby clubs in the area he lives, Hurlingham. Some of the figures mentioned in the article “1,300 kids playing every weekend” and “seven under-19 teams” at some clubs.

I see some similarities and some key differences to rugby on the west coast in Canada. If you look at Hurlingham, the city has a population of about 40,000 (in the article, but 60,000 based on outside data), the Partido (municipality) of Hurlingham is more like 180,000 and covers about 35 km². The area covering the city of Victoria, Oak Bay and Colwood has 3 rugby clubs (4 if you included University of Victoria) , a population of about 130,000 and covers about 48 km². However we can’t say any of the clubs have seven U19 teams or 1,300 kids playing every weekend.

Also we don’t have three semi-pro franchises playing in a league involving multiple countries, nor do we have lots of players in France in professional leagues. We had one player recently but he was so good he stayed and ended up playing for France.

The amateur rugby history here is just as old, dating back to the late 1800s. The BC Premier is arguably the top amateur rugby competition in North America, but it’s not semi-professional.

Les Cusworth seems like a champion of amateur rugby, he knows Argentine rugby thoroughly, I’m looking forward to having a chat and hearing his thoughts on Canadian rugby and any lessons we could apply.

Meet Les Cusworth, the Englishman who shaped Argentine rugby
Charles Richardson
Rugby Reporter, La Plata

When compiling lists of those who have influenced Argentine rugby since the dawn of professionalism in 1995, the name of one of England’s original mavericks, and a Leicester legend, would feature on a few.

Not many have been as instrumental as Les Cusworth, England fly-half between 1979 and 1988 and a Tiger 365 times between 1978 and 1990. Those of a certain age will recall the inventive hi-jinks of a player, once described by the great Nigel Starmer-Smith as English rugby’s “artful dodger”.

But the 70-year-old, who won three John Player Cups with the East Midlands club, has called Hurlingham, a city 20km west of Buenos Aires, home since 2006. In that time, he has worked with almost all of the Pumas’ most celebrated players. There are few in the upper echelons of Argentine rugby who do not know Cusworth – the likes of Agustín Pichot, Marcos Ayerza and Juan Martín Hernández among them – and, as I discover over an afternoon with Cusworth, there is little that he does not know about Argentine rugby, either.

Cusworth’s association with the Pumas dates back, informally, to the 1980s, when he played against their future coach Marcelo Loffreda for the Barbarians at the Hong Kong Sevens, before it accelerated in the 1990s while coach of England A, England sevens, and then as an assistant to Jack Rowell with the senior men’s team. The relationship became official in the build-up to the 2007 World Cup.

“In 1996, I was managing director of Rugby School,” Cusworth, sporting an official Pumas coat from the 2007 World Cup, tells Telegraph Sport at his Hurlingham home. “In the holidays, I started going on coaching courses to Argentina and then when I was here in 2001 I was invited to become the ‘technical consultant’ for the Pumas. Marcelo Loffreda was made the national coach and the president of the union, alongside Loffreda, asked me if I would become the technical director for the senior side. I was employed by Rugby School as managing director, looking after the investments with the board of directors and I put this proposal to the chairman of the governors. There was no pay, you did it because you wanted to do it, and the chairman loved the principles of that and gave me an extra three weeks’ holiday to go to Argentina and do what I needed to do to help them.

“World Rugby [the International Rugby Board in that era] told each of the tier-one unions that there was $1 million available between 2004 and 2007 but that it was for high performance; academies and to prepare teams for the World Cup. Argentina said: ‘You aren’t telling us what to invest in. We want the $1 million and we will decide what to do with it.’ The IRB said no.

“So, from 2003 and 2005, Argentina stuck to their principles and didn’t get a penny from the IRB. In 2006, the impasse stopped and World Rugby said they wanted to give us the money but they wanted someone to bridge the gap between the UAR [Argentine rugby union] and their organisation so that they were happy where the funding was going, and Argentina were happy that it was helping.

“World Rugby said they knew me, and said that the Argentine union knew me, so why didn’t I become the bridge? After a long process, they then offered me a five-year contract in 2006 as director of rugby for the Argentine union. My responsibility was reporting to the union and liaising between them and World Rugby about development for elite rugby.

“My role was basically to protect amateur rugby at all costs and it was initiated by Agustín Pichot and the president at the time, Alejandro Risler. The union said that amateur rugby was its crown jewel and it said that if World Rugby impinged in any way on the club structure and what they were doing then they didn’t want it.”

This is a cause close to Cusworth’s heart. He takes immense pride in the amateur ethos which continues to pervade throughout Argentine grass-roots rugby. There is not one fully professional side – not even the three Argentine franchises in Super Rugby Americas – and the club game remains strictly amateur.

Yet, the sport is booming in Argentina. Cusworth believes the trajectory of Argentine grass-roots rugby is skyward. His local side, Hurling Club, which is twinned with the prestigious Fulham equivalent and have to re-apply to the Irish Rugby Union every two years to continue wearing green jerseys with shamrocks, have six senior teams. Four years ago, that number was two. The club of his great mate Loffreda, who himself coached Leicester between 2007 and 2008, have seven under-19 teams. “Unbelievable,” says Cusworth. There is joined-up thinking, too; on the two weekends where England have faced Los Pumas in their July Tests, the grass-roots calendar has taken a caesura to allow the amateur players to spectate and support.

“Argentina a football country?” Cusworth takes umbrage with my suggestion. “Totally disagree. In San Isidro, there are four major clubs within three miles of each other. Loffreda’s club have 1,300 kids playing every weekend; Pichot’s has 1,000 kids. Everyone goes there Saturday and Sunday; they congregate there. The best players will get contracts in Europe, but then they come back. They go straight back to their clubs – 90 per cent of the 2007 Pumas have done this – to continue playing or to coach.

“I stand in amazement. In Hurlingham there are 38,000 people and three rugby clubs. There are clubs here which are older than Leicester.

“The Argentine union controls all elements of rugby in the country. It is totally amateur. The provinces deal with the clubs – the UAR doesn’t touch those as it leaves it to the provincial unions who then meet around the table with the Argentine union. It’s a brilliant concept which has evolved to protect amateur rugby.”

For five years, Argentina did own a fully professional franchise, the Jaguares, who competed in Super Rugby and were runners-up in the 2019 edition. The franchise disbanded in 2020. I ask Cusworth whether having one professional side in Argentina might not be such a bad idea, to sit above the thundering grass-roots game, to prevent its brightest and best talent migrating towards the UK, Italy and France.

“Would that really be for the greater good?” he asks. “The Argentine soccer team are world champions. How many play in Argentina? It’s about the base. Look at Welsh rugby now. We used to play against Neath, Bridgend, Pontypool, Penarth, Newbridge – where are they now? Generally, not in a healthy environment. How they’ve protected the amateur institutions here, with Pichot the driving force, has been incredible. If more nations had modified a system like this, the game at the base would not be in the state it is currently.

“One of the biggest problems with rugby union in Europe is the gravy train. Once people get paid… the salaries that are flying around… ‘if he’s paid, why can’t I be?’ It’s a vicious circle, a snowball. It doesn’t exist here. The 1st XV captain at Hurling Club is the same as the ballboy.

“I think the game has lost its way. But not here! It’s a pity we didn’t have that vision, to protect the amateur clubs [in the UK], 30 years ago.”

Cusworth and I chat on the day of one of the British and Irish Lions’s 50-point midweek victories in Australia. Much has been posited regarding the continued value of touring Down Under in a country where rugby union plays third fiddle to league and Aussie rules. Many believe that a trip to France, despite its geographical proximity, is the answer, but there are others, like Cusworth, who believe that a Lions tour to Argentina would be the silver bullet.

“Is Argentina ready?” he asks rhetorically. “Are the Lions ready, more like! I think Argentina is tailor-made for it. You could play Chile, Uruguay and a series against the Pumas. Plus the three franchises in Argentina, all of whom would give the Lions a tougher match than the Australian Super Rugby sides. It would be perfect here. Uruguay in Montevideo – you’d fill the place, 60,000 people. The first Test in Córdoba, Wednesday and Saturday in Tucumán, the following Wednesday against the Pampas [one of the franchises] in Buenos Aires followed by the final Test there.

“Everything would be sold out. Without a doubt. It would be a magnificent tour.”

It is palpable that Cusworth is besotted with Argentina. A born-again Argentine, he drinks malbec at lunchtimes and takes a siesta in the afternoons. Although he still supports his beloved Leicester – “it is in the blood” – he would “never” return home. He greatly misses his two daughters from his first marriage – Hannah, 42 and Sarah, 37 – and his grandchildren, who still live in England, but he has a new life in the southern hemisphere. Cusworth has remarried, living with wife, Elizabeth, and has two further children: Helena, 20, and Ben, 15.

“I never achieved what many thought I would at international level,” Cusworth says. “I was at Normanton Grammar School, started playing at 11 – I’ve been in the game 60 years now. My dad was a coal miner and my mum was a dinner lady. I was one of three boys who went to grammar school and we had the choice of cross-country or rugby union, in a rugby league area, between Wakefield and Castleford. There were better players than me in school but with a bit of luck and fortune I ended up going to university. I consider myself lucky to have gotten one cap, nevermind more. In life, you get ups and downs – good luck and bad luck – and that’s life, but I consider myself one of the lucky ones, to have had the opportunities and experiences that I’ve had.

“Hong Kong Sevens was a special moment with people like Nick Preston, [Andy] Ripley, [Peter] Wheeler, [Sir Clive] Woodward. Brynmor Williams, the scrum-half. I’m so lucky that I have had so many great rugby experiences.

“To risk losing that is criminal. The English and Welsh clubs, which had huge numbers, the latter with a fly-half factory and loads of international players… hopefully, someone, somewhere can come up with a plan to rectify it.”

The power-brokers at the Welsh Rugby Union and Rugby Football Union could do a lot worse than give this de facto Argentine a call.