Brendan Gallagher: The Puma underdogs must show teeth again

And now the hard work and the pain really begins. Making their debut in the Rugby Championship last season was an exhilarating but daunting experience for the Pumas as they finally scrambled to the summit of a mountain only to be confronted with an even bigger range. They have much greater heights to scale yet and altitude sickness could be a problem.
The Pumas are now operating in a rarefied rugby environment. What team in the world would face the prospect of annual home and away matches against New Zealand, South Africa and Australia within the space of two months with anything other than trepidation? How many times recently, for example, has the much vaunted Wales team, tipped by some as potential 2015 World Cup winners, nicked even a single win against such opposition?
So this is the season when reality kicks in for the Pumas after the euphoria of last summer when they acquitted themselves with spirit and no little skill but still came away with just a solitary draw against South Africa in Mendoza. They earned tons of respect and kudos but just two points for that draw and two bonus point defeats.
The 2013 Championship will be brutal.  Australia, hopefully with Quade Cooper reinstalled at fly-half, will be rejuvenated under a new coach, and battle-hardened after the Lions series. South Africa are beginning to marshal their mighty resources as coach Heyneke Meyer gets his feet under the table and New Zealand will be as formidable as ever. As Jake White commented last week “New Zealand are always in good shape, I've never known them otherwise”.
The return of Richie McCaw also brings a new energy to proceedings for the All Blacks who clearly start as strong favourites.
Argentina, rather like Italy when they finally battered down the door of prejudice and shamed the Five Nations into becoming Six, have ironically arrived at rugby's top table during a slight dip in their fortunes. The Italy team of the late 90s could have comfortably secured a mid-table finish and maybe even challenged for the title on occasions, but by the new Millennium they had grown old and tired together.
Equally Argentina, throughout the ‘noughties' and especially towards the end of the decade, were a match for most teams in the world and their 34-10 3rd-4th play-off victory over France at the 2007 World Cup at the Parc des Princes was one of the great Test match performances. But time waits for no man and that team – built around the inspirational Gus Pichot, the classy Ignacio Corletto, the remarkable Mario Ledesma and unheralded warriors like Rodrio Roncero and Gonzalo Longo – were just half a generation too early for SANZAR's dithering administrators.
History shows just how difficult making these quantum leaps can be. France lost 11 Five Nations matches on the bounce after their entry into the tournament in 1909 before recording their first win, 16-15 over Scotland in 1911, and won only two of their first 30 championship matches. France's first outright tournament title came only in 1959 although they shared the title in 1954.
Italy, meanwhile, did pull off a remarkable 34-20 win over reigning champions Scotland on their Six Nations debut but their overall record of 11 wins and a draw in 70 Championship matches tells its own draining tale of blood, sweat and tears.
This present Pumas team are not without talent – they beat Wales with plenty to spare at the Millennium Stadium last autumn lest we forget – and are led by one of the world's great modern day players in No.8 Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe. But what they need to rediscover is that bloody-minded combativity which made Argentina so formidable as they grappled for recognition. For decades the Pumas fought a wonderfully successful guerrilla war against the massed ranks of rugby's smug elite and they need to reinvoke that backs-to-the-wall spirit because, believe me, their toughest battles await.
The best Pumas teams were chippy and in your face on the paddock although always charming and welcoming off the pitch. The Pumas, in fact, were a complete nightmare to play against, just ask France who could never beat them.
Their large, streetwise French based contingent knew every trick in the book and they had heaps of Latin attitude which was absolutely fine by me. Secretly most rugby fans loved them for it even if we booed and jeered their occasional excesses.
To these eyes the devil has gone out of their play a little but that old passion and intensity must become Argentina's default setting again because any Championship wins in the near future will have to be quarried out.
Those straddling the two eras – Ferndandez Lobbe, Juan Martin Hernandez, the excellent Patricio Albacete and Dr Felipe Contepomi on his swansong before starting his medical practice – must preach that roaring defiance and obduracy.
Just as the All Blacks singular culture and tradition is handed down through each generation the Pumas must glory in being the world's best and stroppiest underdogs. Their fight against the odds is never over.