Bernardo Houssay won the 1947 Nobel Prize for medicine, Arturo Rodriguez Jurado the gold for heavyweight boxing at the 1928 Olympics, and Ernesto Guevara became a revolutionary icon. But the first Argentinian rugby player to achieve international renown for his feats on the field was Hugo Porta, who turns 65 on September 11.Like many of the greatest careers, his had elements of the serendipitous. He was initially enthused by football, and good enough to have interested the famous Boca Juniors club. And he began rugby life as a scrum-half, which he played well enough for Banco Nacion -- his first and only club -- to be called into the national squad as a teenager, before an injury crisis led to his being pressed into service as an emergency outside-half at a squad session.That was the end of the budding scrum-half. His first cap at No.10 followed shortly after, against Chile in Buenos Aires a month after his 20th birthday in 1971. And it would be the best part of another two decades -- a durability which helped persuade the young Diego Dominguez that invoking his Italian ancestry might be a better route to an international rugby career than waiting for Porta to lose form or quit -- before Argentina again wanted for an outside-half.The numbers are impressive -- a Test career which lasted from 1971 to 1990 and a total of 651 points , then the all-time record for any international player, in 52 matches for Argentina and eight for South America.Even if the 228 points scored against nations not then recognised as having full Test status are excluded, he went well past the previous man on the all-time record holders list -- Andy Irvine, with 301 points -- before eventually giving way to Michael Lynagh.And he was vastly more than an accumulator of points against weaker nations. His career coincided with the period in which Argentina started to threaten the established order. And a common factor in the landmark results of that period is the contribution of the Porta boot.He scored all 18 points in the draw against France in 1977, a further 16 including a hat-trick of drop goals in the 24-13 defeat of Australia in 1979, every point including another trio of drops in the 21-21 draw with the All Blacks in 1985 and a further 21 in South Americas 21-12 overthrow of the Boks at Bloemfontein in 1982. His 28 drop goals were also an all-time record, since overtaken by Jonny Wilkinson.Yet it was as a creator that he made the greatest impression. Carwyn James, a towering rugby intellect and himself a former international outside-half, wrote after first seeing him in the flesh of having his faith restored in the aesthetic and artistic possibilities of back play.John Reason wrote that he could play closer to an opponent without being tackled than the top matador working with a bull, and there are echoes of Jack Kyle in Reasons observation that he looked predictable but never was.Opponents were similarly awe-struck. All Black captain Graham Mourie reckoned, from his privileged open-side observation point, that Porta was the best first-five he played against, recalling memorably that he always left a free arm slack so he could sense a tackle coming and adjust: he felt that on his arm like a cats whisker.Michael Lynagh found him hard even to get near and that you could only keep doing your best and sit back and admire him through gritted teeth.In 1985 Midi Olympique reckoned him the best player in the world, while Rothmans Rugby Yearbook named him the best outside-half of the 1980s -- a decade which also saw Naas Botha, Mark Ella, Lynagh, Jonathan Davies, John Rutherford, Ollie Campbell, Tony Ward, Rob Andrew and Grant Fox. Legendary commentator Bill McLaren rated him the best he had seen.Yet perhaps the most remarkable honour was the one conferred at home, as Argentinas Sportsman of the Year in 1985. It was one thing for the aficionados of long-established rugby nations to recognise his greatness, quite another for his famously football-besotted compatriots to look past its practitioners -- who in 1985 included a near-his-peak Diego Maradona -- to a giant in a minority pastime left over from Argentinas past as an economic dependency of the British Empire.A qualified architect, Porta retired from rugby in 1990 expecting to go into the family kitchen business. But he was rapidly diverted to an old rugby stamping ground when President Carlos Menem, wanting to re-open diplomatic relations with South Africa following the release of Nelson Mandela, appointed him ambassador to Pretoria.Menem calculated correctly that Portas personality and rugby fame would outweigh any objections to the sanctions-busting of the three South America tours he led to the Republic between 1980 and 1984, the name a thin disguise adopted by overwhelmingly Argentinian squads because of their unions opposition to contact with apartheid. His time in Pretoria was followed by a spell as Argentinas Minister of Sport, no sinecure in a country which takes it so seriously.The voice heard in periodic interviews in recent years has been one of nostalgia for the amateur game. But there is no reason to doubt him when he says that he never made a cent playing rugby -- Argentina was the one country exempted from the seminal Pugh reports damning condemnation of the hypocrisy of leading rugby nations over money.And you dont have to be an apologist for the pre-1995 era to share his worries that players dont have the freedoms that I felt when I was a player or that they might not develop minds and thinking in the same way as their bodies.Idealist as he is, Porta was also enough of a pragmatist to have played his part, as a member of the Argentine Rugby Unions directorate in the early years of Argentinas evolution from rigid amateurism to the highly successful professionalism of the present.As the Pumas of today continue their thrilling challenge to the games long-standing hierarchies, they will doubtless join much of the rugby world in wishing their greatest forerunner Feliz Cumpleanos. John Gibson Ducks Jersey . 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NEW YORK -- The New York Islanders are playing their best hockey of the season, and theyre doing it against some of the top teams in the Eastern Conference.Andrew Ladd scored in the second period and Jaroslav Halak stopped 36 shots to lead the Islanders to a 4-2 victory over the crosstown-rival Rangers on Tuesday night. John Tavares, Jason Chimera and Scott Mayfield also scored at Barclays Center to help the last-place Islanders improve to 4-0-1 in their last five games.Were playing a lot better hockey and we know we can still be a lot better so I think thats really the mindset, Tavares said. Lot of games here before Christmas. ... We know we can still do a lot of good things `til then. Were just starting the second quarter of the season.The Islanders last three wins have come against defending champion Pittsburgh and the Rangers -- tied atop the Metropolitan Division -- and Washington, which sits in one of the conferences wild-card spots.No secret if you want to make the playoffs, be a good team, you gotta beat some of the top teams in the league and certainly being able to do that has been big for us, Tavares said. Even though there still needs to be a lot of improvement, I think we all recognize theres some good building blocks going.Jimmy Vesey and Marc Staal scored for the Metropolitan Division-leading Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist finished with 28 saves. The Rangers have alternated wins and losses in regulation in their last eight games.I think its important for us not to look for any excuses and try to be there every night as good as we can, said Lundqvist, who fell to 1-6-1 in his last eight against the Islanders. Just have to dig a little deeper to get there.The Rangers went 0 for 6 on the power play, including a 6-on-3 advantage with Lundqvist pulled over the final 32 seconds.You gotta score those timely goals and we didnt do it tonight, Rangers coach Alain Vigneault said. We had the looks. I thought we battled hard. We tried to come back but their goalie without a doubt was the best player on the ice tonight and we didnt finish on our opportunities.After the Islanders took a 2-0 lead in the first period, the Rangers twice pulled within one but couldnt tie it before falling behind by two again.Vesey knocked in the rebound of a shot by Rick Nash for the rookies ninth just 56 seconds into the second to cut the deficit in half.The Islanders restored their two-goal lead 1:22 later when Shane Prince drove the net and had the puck poked away by Lundqvist. It went right to Ladd, who fired it in for his third.ddddddddddddStaal pulled the Rangers to 3-2 when he took a pass from J.T. Miller on a 4-on-2 rush and fired it by Halak from the right faceoff dot for his third at 8:54. The assist gave Miller a team-high 20 points on the season.Tavares restored the Islanders two-goal lead off a pass from Josh Bailey from the top of the right faceoff circle on the power play for his seventh with 8:47 left in the third.Its always important to win games, Halak said. Beating the division rivals, its always huge for us, its always a four-point game. Coming out with two points against the Rangers is always a fun game to play.The Islanders were outshot 16-9 in the first period but took a 2-0 lead into the intermission.Mayfield got his first of the season in his third game as he took a pass from Cal Clutterbuck and fired a slap shot from near the boards outside the right faceoff circle past a screened Lundqvist at 7:03.The Rangers Matt Puempel was down on the ice for several minutes and left due to a concussion after taking a high stick from the Islanders Brock Nelson, who was whistled for a double-minor. The Rangers controlled the play for most of the four-minute power-play, firing eight shots at Halak, who stopped them all.Just as the penalty was expiring, Chimera brought the puck up the ice, waited for Nelson to join the play out of the box and sent the puck to him at the right side. Nelson skated up and fired a shot that bounced around in front, and Chimera knocked it in with 2:36 left for his fourth of the season and third in four games.Game notes The Rangers were without F Michael Grabner, the team-leader with 13 goals, while the former Islander was back in Austria for his grandmothers funeral. ... The Islanders improved to 8-1-2 when scoring at least three goals, 7-0-1 when leading after two periods, and 7-1-3 when scoring first. ... D Mayfield was called up from Bridgeport of the AHL to take the place of Johnny Boychuk, who was scratched due to flu-like symptoms. ... The Islanders had their second sellout of the season, and first since the opener against Anaheim on Oct. 16.UP NEXTRangers: At Winnipeg on Thursday night in the middle game of a three-game road swing.Islanders: Host St. Louis on Thursday night in the finale of a three-game homestand.---Follow Vin Cherwoo at www.twitter.com/VinCherwooAP. ' ' '