Argentina’s decision to give up home advantage resulted in the third highest crowd of the Rugby Championship season, but it cost them on the field as they secured the wooden spoon in an exciting but messy encounter. Australia finished as runners-up to New Zealand a month before they begin a grand slam tour of Europe, but they will inspire neither awe nor fear.
Australia’s four tries all came from turnovers as Argentina continued their policy of running from everywhere. Some of their rugby was exhilarating and high on skill, but decision-making and discernment were lacking. The Rugby Championship organisers have a two-year option to bring more matches here and it will be down to who is prepared to concede home advantage.
The match was not a sell-out, but hundreds of spectators were still trying to get into the ground when Australia scored the opening try of the match after five minutes. Or perhaps they were impeded by those trying to get out given the frenzied, slapdash opening. There is no gap between north and south, just between New Zealand and the rest.
Neither side had an element of control in a contest that seemed to be who could make the most mistakes and who could give away the most penalties. Australia lost two players to the sin-bin in the first half for high tackles, Michael Hooper and Adam Coleman, although Rory Arnold was their worst offender. In the second period, the replacement scrum-half, Nick Phipps, escaped with a penalty for shoving one of Argentina’s medical team to the ground in an incident which summed up an evening which had an air of the unreal about it.
Argentina were without two of their most influential players, the outside-half Nicolás Sánchez and the No8 Facundo Isa, and they lacked a general to steer them around the field. Some of their off-loading, forwards and backs, was breathtaking and they are second to New Zealand in their ability to create space rather than rely on a defender to miss a tackle. But they do not play what is in front of them, making them as one-dimensional as they were in the days when they played 10-man rugby.
A year ago, Australia defeated Wales here at the end of the World Cup group stage, a victory based on an impregnable defence and strategic nous. The Wallabies have lost a layer of experience since then, especially behind the scrum, but they had a better command of the basics than Argentina and their triumph was one of pragmatism over idealism.
They should have been behind after one minute when two mistakes by Will Genia would have resulted in a try for Santiago González Iglesias had the outside-half waited to be put onside before picking up the ball after Leonardo Senatore’s chargedown. Australia’s response was a try by Coleman after the Pumas had tamely kicked away possession, followed by the first of Bernard Foley’s three penalties.
Iglesias, initially, lacked Sánchez’s accuracy and missed two penalties as well as the conversion of Matías Alemanno’s try from a driving maul one minute after Hooper had been sent to the sin-bin. Coleman’s absence did not prove as costly for the Wallabies who capitalised on an Argentina overthrow at a lineout to stretch the defence right and left before Samu Kerevi fended off Matías Moroni to score.
Iglesias’s first successful penalty cut Australia’s lead to 10 points at the interval and within four minutes of the restart the Pumas were on the front foot when Jerónimo de la Fuente turned Martín Landajo’s quickly taken penalty into seven points, spinning away from Foley. But at the point when they needed to take stock and exert territorial pressure, Alemanno threw a hopeless pass in a congested midfield on his own 10-metre line and presented Kerevi with his second try.
Two Iglesias penalties brought Argentina back to within four points but when Agustín Creevy lost control of the ball on the Wallabies’ line a spark went out. Foley’s penalty six minutes from time all but ensured Australia would not lose before Landajo’s wayward pass gave Dean Mumm the gift of a try.
“We deserved to win,” said the Argentina head coach, Daniel Hourcade. “That is to take nothing away from Australia but we lost because we made mistakes. Perhaps it would have been different had the game been played in Buenos Aires, but it was an honour and an experience to play in a cathedral of rugby.”
Errors cost Argentina in the World Cup semi-final between the countries here a year ago when the Pumas were again grounded by their own daring. As countries look to emulate the all-conquering All Blacks, they should remember that one of sport’s maxims is to make the most of what you have got, something neither Argentina nor Australia are doing.
