Santiago Carreras back at 10 - Argentina name team to play Japan

Argentina head coach Michael Cheika has named his matchday 23 to face Japan in Nantes on Sunday, with Santiago Carreras (pictured) returning at fly-half in place of Nicolas Sanchez and prop Francisco Gómez Kodela making his first start since the opening-game defeat against England.

1 Thomas Gallo
2 Julian Montoya (c) 
3 Francisco Gómez Kodela 
4 Guido Petti Pagadizabal 
5 Tomas Lavanini
6 Pablo Matera
7 Marcos Kremer 
8 Juan Martin Gonzalez
9 Gonzalo Bertranou 
10 Santiago Carreras 
11 Mateo Carreras
12 Santiago Chocobares
13 Lucio Cinti 
14 Emiliano Boffelli 
15 Juan Cruz Mallia 

Replacements:
16 Agustín Creevy 
17 Joel Sclavi 
18 Eduardo Bello 
19 Matias Alemanno 
20 Pedro Rubiolo 
21 Lautaro Bazan Velez 
22 Nicolas Sanchez 
23 Matías Moroni

•    Head coach Michael Cheika has made 11 changes to his starting XV from the team who defeated Chile 59-5 last week, with only Guido Petti, Marcos Kremer, Juan Martin Gonzalez and Lucio Cinti retaining their places.
•    Marcos Kremer and Juan Martin Gonzalez are the only two Los Pumas players to have started every match at RWC 2023. 
•    Francisco Gómez Kodela starts for the first time since their opening match against England in Marseille. 
•    Guido Petti and Tomas Lavanini reunite in the second-row for the first time since September 2022, and for the 32nd time in their career. 
•    The top three, and five of Los Pumas top six most capped players of all-time are named in this match-day squad- Agustin Creevy (104), Nicolas Sanchez (100), Pablo Matera (97), Julian Montoya (91) and Matias Alemanno (90). 
•    Guido Petti has been their main target at lineout time, winning a competition-high 21 on their own throw. He will be jumping against Japanese lock Jack Cornelsen who has made the joint-most lineout steals (5) of any player at RWC 2023. 
•    Captain Julian Montoya has the third-highest success-rate of any hooker at RWC 2023, winning 93% on this throw.