Peter Jackson: Les Cusworth helps transform Pumas into smart cats

As a balding England fly-half who flitted on and off the Test stage during the Eighties, Les Cusworth once dropped a goal that left Ireland clutching a wooden spoon.

A decade or so later he went to the 1995 World Cup as England backs coach only to see his plans rail-roaded to smithereens by Jonah Lomu’s impersonation of a runaway freight train. Swept aside by the advent of professionalism, Cusworth sought relocation and reinvention in Buenos Aires as Argentina’s High Performance Manager.

And there, over a period of seven years, he orchestrated the samba rugby revolution which engulfed Ireland, an irresistible brand of high-octane running which left the champions of Europe with nowhere to go but home.