The exciting memory of the 1999 Pumas for Alex Wyllie
The New Zealand coach Alex Wyllie, who died this Sunday at age 80, left a great legacy in the players of Los Pumas that integrated the squad that played the 1999 World Cupwhom he enhanced to achieve a historical passage to an instance of the quarterfinals for the first time in history of Argentine rugby.
Scrum He communicated with several referents of that deed to know what the impact that Head Coach had on that group that for the first time managed to overcome the stage of a world cup groups.
Defined as “a hard guy” with a granjero pintWyllie took over the Pumas team just three weeks after the start of the RWC 1999 and managed to influence the team in a very short time, instilling indelible values that led to a great World Cup deed.
Next, Several players from that Pumas team remember with love to the first foreign coach that the Argentine Rugby National Team had and left an indelible memory for these latitudes.
In addition to Gonzalo Quesada, a scorer of the 1999 World Cup, Scrum consulted other protagonists of that squad that was very marked by the influence of Wyllie.
What did the 1999 pumas say about Alex Wyllie?
Mauricio Reggiardo – Pilar de los Pumas at the RWC 1999
“Alex Wyllie allowed me to look for the demand and rigor: it was a very hard guy and wanted players to play hard. Beyond that there is a characteristic of the Argentine player, it gave me a lot in that sense and also in the fact of enjoying playing hard.”
“With respect to the Argentine rugby, he gave us discipline and the fact of internalizing that there are no excuses. He emphasized that we were at schedule since we are uniformed as a team. For a rugby team it looks like a rugby team we have to feel a rugby team and in that he gave us a lot. He gave us the fact of recognizing the value and respect he generates representing a rugby team.”
Eduardo Simone – Center of Los Pumas at the RWC 1999
“Personally it marked me a lot for what my rugbistic moment was: he asked me to trust me more. In addition, I shared many fun and decontracted moments, which made me see what I had behind that shell that gave a farmer and hard man. Alex became very firm in some moments, more than anything with the things he wanted to incorporate or in specific subjects of rugby. It was very front Barrera that had to be natural, he met us all and saw how we respect him and learned to love and I think he also ended up loving us a lot. ”
“As for the group, he gave us a lot of order, on the court surely, but also in regard to the habits outside the court, to simple issues but that I believe that we did not have incorporated, such as punctuality and some habits that helped us start being professionals, beyond that we were still amateur players. It could.
“In addition, I think a special mystique began to forge that evolved with that group that later ended – without obviously staff – with the bronze in France that already had several consecrated players and with experience and with a very important trajectory and that had begun practically in the international rugby with him, on that 1999 squad.”
Lucas Ostiglia – Ala de los Pumas at the RWC 1999
“I was very small when Alex trained me, I was 23 years old and I was surprised by the order he put on the team. It was an obsessive of arriving early and being uniformed as it was stipulated for each training. I think that in that aspect it marked us all and made us understand that not respecting a slogan was not to respect the team. He was a person of few words, but he had the fair words for each moment.”
“He emphasized the physical condition and I think that in that aspect we arrived very well to the World Cup. If I am not mistaken there were no professionals in that team, or there were very few, but made us train how if we were. It was a hinge moment, I think that after Alex the Pumas changed their heads and not receiving or not charging money, but to be professionals in preparation beyond money. He changed our heads.”
Rolando “Yankee” Martin – Ala de los Pumas at the RWC 1999
“Alex was a tremendous coach who took out the best of each player, that was incredible for all who could enjoy it, and also trusted us from zero day, at a complicated moment of the selected. It made us see that if we managed to improve some aspects of the game, and especially discipline, we were going to be able to compete equally … Luckily we listened to it. We will always be grateful to Alex that he has trained us. ”
Manuel Contepomi – Los Pumas Center at the RWC 1999
“Alex was a very important guy for our entire generation, our 76, 77 and 78 litters, because he was coach of minors 21, at an era where the southern hemisphere was played, and in addition to being well sported it was a very good progress for that generation to live a youth stage almost passing to the senior level, of great learning.”
“It was a guy who left us with the importance of understanding how we had to behave and take the seriousness with which he had to be trained to get to the highest level. In my opinion it was obviously sullen, very frontal, but that frontality made him a very close guy. He told you things without any problem, but always in search of excellence and in search of the benefit of the team. The 1999 World Cup stage for our career ”.
“I think Alex helped that generation of Los Pumas, a team where there were great players, at a time of several conflicts and inconveniences that were at the union level. I was very small, I was 20 years old, and the truth is that Alex with his frontality, without any interest or political mix of some line, and being the first foreigner who went to train the national team, gave him a distinctive imprint. Argentina. Despite having been sullen and hard, it was also permeable, or it was allowed to be permeable, to many issues of Argentine culture. ”
“In short, I think it was a profit for both sides, for the Argentine team, because we learned a lot, and for him, which I think also had a good time with us because he lived this Argentine and Latin culture that we have impregnated in rugby and enjoyed it a lot.”
Diego Albanese – Wing de los Pumas at the RWC 1999
What sadness Alex’s departure … knowing that we can’t drink a beer and chat from rugby with him. He was passionate about the game, a sparing, direct, hard, sincere, who didn’t laugh much, and his body was not shaking at all. But he had a big heart. Over time, in the lobbies of the hotels that we stayed, at night, when he took his beer paint, we were chatting with him and we were taking out some smiles.
Today I saw many titles in several rugby portals and many title it as “the coach of the 99 World Cup Epic” … But the reality is that it was much more than that … Beyond the results obtained, Alex changed our heads to that group of players, completely amateurs, since his arrival there by 1996. That group that eventually became a team, and that it was much of those who arrived in the world.
Alex helped us to make a change of mentality, habits, discipline, respect, what it means to be part of a team, of the commitment that entails and the small things that make a difference. In short, Grizz, opened our heads to improve, to have better habits, to self -examine among us and showed us that a team starts from the outside of the court, rather than inside.
“If outside the court do not help with the bags and are not supportive, they do not intend to be supportive of the court,” he told us. As simple as that. We were instilled in the culture of team, respect, punctuality, self -discipline, self -examination and that being professional does not go for charge for playing.
Being professional is to seek to be better all the time, giving the best within your reach, in this case the rugby, but applies to anything in life I remember the last costumes, when we lost with France in Dublin. He asked for the word and with a silence that the flies were heard, he told us with tearful eyes: “Thank you, thanks for what they did. I congratulate them, keep growing, I will always follow them.” That day, we cry next to the Anglo -Saxon man who, if he could start it, would be “He who changed our heads.” QEPD Alex, thanks for everything ...
