Looks like a porky Pichot
What a test player he has been and to have his best (?) test season at 35? maybe he should play on.
This hasn't been his best test season. That was in the 2007 World Cup.
To be honest, I feel a lot of the praise given to Roncero this tournament has been just because he is an Argentine who is well known to the English speaking media so they mention his name more, rave over a tackle, and give him the credit for scrums. Whilst a player like Figallo (who has been good) gets ignored by them. I'm not saying Roncero hasn't been very good, because he has, but he hasn't been perfect and the media is also giving him an easy time and ignoring some flaws such as high penalty count (although to be fair this is reduced on what he was conceding in 2010/11) and fitness.
Roncero is still a good player, but for limited periods of time. Fatigue visibly shows after about 45 minutes in each match, in the last match he got in the way of backline moves on more than one occasion.
I would have started Ayerza for this tournament to be honest. He is as good as Roncero now, but younger, and has better stamina, and will be available for the Pumas for the next few seasons including the 2015 World Cup.
Roncero's retirement marks an end of an era for a golden age of Argentine front rowers. Roberto Grau, Mauricio Reggiardo, Omar Hasan, MartÃn Scelzo, Mario Ledesma, Federico Méndez and Rodrigo Roncero all in the same generation. Such depth of front rowers around at the same time is remarkable, and no other nations could say they have 7 front rowers of such high quality available all at the same time at one point.
The front row factory in Argentina has actually dried up now. Ayerza and Figallo are good first choice front rowers, but the depth of front rowers available is much reduced. Other than those two mentioned, Argentine front rowers who were born in the 1980's have largely flattered to deceive.
Juan Pablo Orlandi is not up to top international standard (New Zealand started getting on top of the scrum as soon as he came on in the Wellington match), Francisco Gómez Kodela isn't that great and struggled immensely in the June matches against Italy and France. Maximiliano Bustos is decent scrummaging wise (which is why I think he should be in the squad ahead of Orlandi or Gómez Kodela), but has other issues he needs to sort out which is mainly his ridiculously high penalty count.
Other props born in the 1980's who have been previously tried by Argentina such as Juan Gómez (who is crap), Pedro Ledesma and Pablo Henn have also disappeared without making an impression.
Whilst at hooker, Creevy is the future for sure but despite being immense around the field still struggles with lineouts, and other than him the choice is bare. Guiñazu is a poor player but to be fair he has upped his game for this tournament, but still is hardly an amazing hooker. Other than those two, the cupboard is bare for hookers, you have to look into Pro D2 to find another Argentine hooker playing professionally in Europe. Whilst Postiglioni's progress of converting from prop to hooker is being slowed by coaches constantly changing his position (he played loosehead, hooker, tighthead and even lock last year in Argentina), he didn't throw into the lineout in June despite playing hooker.
Curiously, the current crop of Argentine hookers aren't natural hookers at all. They've all been converted. Creevy was a flanker, whilst Guiñazu and Postiglioni were both props. So all Argentina's hookers in their squad started their top level careers in a different position. Why aren't more hookers being produced from junior level?
