{"id":119464,"date":"2025-09-04T23:54:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T23:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119464\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T23:54:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T23:54:16","slug":"hell-have-a-trick-or-two-or-three-under-his-sleeve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/119464\/","title":{"rendered":"‘He’ll have a trick or two, or three, under his sleeve’"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Felipe Contepomi studied to become a doctor while playing rugby in Ireland, but admits the thought of coaching against his old mate Joe Schmidt is a daunting task.<\/p>\n

A friendship forged from their days in Ireland<\/a> will be put on hold when the Wallabies host Argentina<\/a> in Townsville on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Both sides arrive with momentum, Australia<\/a> fresh off a 1-1 tour of South Africa, while Los Pumas<\/a> beat the All Blacks<\/a> at home for the first time a fortnight ago.<\/p>\n

Rankings points also come into play, with the sides effectively battling for the No.6 spot ahead of December\u2019s 2027 Rugby World Cup<\/a> draw.<\/p>\n

Contepomi, an 87-Test Pumas star who studied at the Royal College of Surgeons while playing flyhalf for Leinster, says all bets are off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like watching his teams. I don\u2019t like playing against his teams,\u201d he said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a brilliant coach. I have loads of time for him. A guy I keep in contact with.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes when you hear he\u2019s leaving (as Wallabies coach next year), you think, \u2018You need to stay around for the good of the game\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s so detailed. He\u2019ll have a trick or two, or three, under his sleeve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schmidt laughed when told of his opposite\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat makes me a little bit afraid of what he\u2019s got cooked up, and I hope he\u2019s not sleeping well about what we might have in our armoury,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI rate Felipe really highly as a coach, and he\u2019s a good bloke.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose two things mean I hope the best for him, when he plays other teams. Not against us on Saturday, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Felipe Contepomi studied to become a doctor while playing rugby in Ireland, but admits the thought of coaching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-119464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}