Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe of Argentina. Photo / Getty Images
Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe's face said it all afterwards.
It contained a mixture of exhaustion and pain, with a bit of bewilderment thrown in. Another test against the All Blacks and another defeat, despite an advantage in terms of set piece quality and penalties conceded.
"They put a lot of
pressure on us. That's why they are the best, they just keep putting the pressure on," the Pumas skipper told the television interviewer, who decided to look forward to next week a little bit too quickly for Lobbe's liking.
"Are you looking forward to playing Australia in Rosario," he was asked on the side of the La Plata pitch. "Right now? No. [We are] just looking forward to resting a little bit. On Monday we will look forward to this last game of the Championship and we'll just throw in everything we have, last game, last 80 minutes of rugby."
Lobbe was right to say he wasn't thinking about the Wallabies, because his team have many lessons to learn. They might get up over Ewen McKenzie's struggling outfit, who face a tough travel schedule to get to Rosario from Cape Town, but the gulf between the Pumas and the All Blacks is almost as big as the distance between the two continents.
