Argentina’s new brand of rugby — and it is a new brand — is being fast-tracked by head coach Felipe Contepomi, whose rugby story is among the most inspirational you will read because it extends so far beyond the sport.
Dr Contepomi it is, and Dr Contepomi it will always be.
Contepomi played 87 Tests for Argentina, many of them alongside his identical twin brother, Manuel, who are two of 12 kids, with dad Contepomi having played for Argentina in the 1960s.
Felipe Contepomi was outstanding in the 2007 World Cup, with the Pumas reaching the semifinals for the first time in history. The Springboks ended their campaign in the semifinal in 2007, and the Boks would also beat them for third place in 2015.
But it was what Contepomi was doing in Dublin, Ireland, between 2003 and 2009 that is remarkable in this age of professional sport. Having signed for Leinster from England’s Bristol, he balanced playing professional rugby with attending Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. He graduated with his medical degrees in 2007, and worked at Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
Transition into coaching
He continued to balance rugby and being a surgeon after his retirement as a player in 2013, despite immediately transitioning into coaching. In Buenos Aires, where he would call time on his career, he finished at Club Newman in the city where his career had started.
Contepomi would return to Dublin as backs coach of Leinster between 2018 and 2022, before joining the Pumas as attack coach. The promotion to head coach was quick and natural. The improvements in the Pumas were as quick, and the Pumas backs now have the sharpness of a surgeon’s blade.
They also play with a similar precision.
Several feature stories have been written about the magnitude of Contepomi’s career balancing act, and he has described the decision to pursue a profession outside of professional rugby as the best of his life.
Rugby and medicine
He has spoken of how intertwined he finds rugby and medicine, articulating it as one complementing the other because both demand focus under pressure and both require teamwork. Both also require the most demanding form of discipline and there is no margin for error.
You can see his professional philosophy play out on the field, with individual player ill-discipline the one area that continues to frustrate Contepomi, but the Pumas are more of a thinking man’s team than has ever been the case.
They play with precision, and are a very intelligent rugby team, coached by a very clever individual.
Contepomi, Joe Schmidt (Wallabies), Scott Robertson (All Blacks) and Rassie Erasmus (Boks) all took charge of their respective teams in 2024. Erasmus had been there before as head coach of the 2019 World Cup-winning Springboks and as national director of rugby in the 2023 World Cup win.
Schmidt, former head coach of Ireland, was appointed assistant coach and technical advisor to All Blacks coach Ian Foster in the months leading into the 2023 World Cup. He succeeded Eddie Jones after the Wallabies 2023 RWC blow-out when they did not make the quarterfinals.
Innovation and inspiration
Robertson, coach of the Crusaders in seven successive Super Rugby title wins, was the popular choice for the All Blacks, and all the fanfare was about his appointment.
The narrative around him was one of innovation and inspiration, and how he would transform the All Blacks and give the world of Test rugby an All Blacks team seemingly from another planet in how they would play.
But it is Contepomi who has produced the sparkle and transformed his team, while Robertson has overseen an All Blacks squad struggling for identity and playing with more indifference than inspiration.
Contepomi, for the Pumas, is creating the right kind of winning history in results and Robertson is authoring some of the darkest chapters in All Blacks history, conceding 38 points to the Pumas in Wellington and 43 to the Boks in Wellington.
Everyone thought the coaching talk of the Rugby Championship would be Razor Robertson, but it is the coach who operates a scalpel as a surgeon who is making the biggest teams bleed.
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