Morning G&GRs, Reds and Wallabies Fan bringing you a review of the second test match between Argentina and Australia. After the torrential rain of last week, the teams got to run out on a dry track in Santa Fe. The big question for the week was whether the Wallabies could back up the gritty win last week, and whether they could play expansively on a dry field.
The stadium is also locally known as the Elephants Graveyard, though they might add Wallabies to that now.
A few changes to the starting side for the Wallabies with Lukhan, Noah and Tom Wright out and Williams, Donaldson, and Jorgensen in, with Kellaway moving to fullback.
Firstly, some accolades, congrats to James Slipper for equalling George Gregan on 139 test caps, and to Josh Canham who made his debut off the bench in the second half.
The first half
The first half was entertaining, both teams came out with an intent to play attacking rugby, and Australia looked to have mostly improved the kick-off receipts compared to recent weeks. The teams traded penalties, and field position before Australia scored the first try with Tizano crossing from close range after an excellent break from Angus Bell.
They were lucky not to concede straight away, with a poor kick off receipt that led to Argentina crossing but being denied by the TMO for an obstruction.
The Wallbies then put together some good play to march downfield and score through a penalty to Ben Donaldson. It’s 13-3 after 22 minutes and the Wallabies are right in this. Though some aspects of the play could be better. Box kicking could have been better, with an early charge down leading to pressure, and generally not being contestable.
Australia scored a good try at 28 mintutes with some initial good vision y Gordon and Donaldson to go back to the blindside, and good passing between Kellaway and Jorgensen, put Kellaway over. Donaldson converted for 20-3.
As we have seen too often this year, the Wallabies conceded almost immediately. After what looked like a decent box kick to touch, the Argentine fullback Mallia cleverly kept the ball in play and set Argentina in motion for a great try, which included a contestable kick, offloads, and the right winger Carreras scoring. The Wallabies still in the lead at 20-10, but Argentina getting into their groove.
Argentina scored again before half time with the captain Montyoa scoring in his 100th test. It’s duly converted and it’s 20-17.
Argentina went very close to scoring again right on half time, but Matera was just short and lost it forward.
The second half
Well, it was a game of two halves, and Argentina really put the Wallabies to the sword , scoring 50 points to Australia’s 7, to close out the game 67-27 and hand the Wallabies their biggest ever test defeat, surpassing the 61-22 loss to South Africa in 1997.
There was a lot of this in the second half. Source Getty Images.
There’s not much positive stuff to say about the second half, Australia did score one try to Tate McDermott, but otherwise it was all Argentina. Los Pumas kept the ball alive whenever they could and scored 7 tries, including 4 in the last 10 minutes.
The Wallabies were their own worst enemies with knock-ons, dropped ball, and poor kicking, gifting possession and territory to Los Pumas, who almost invariably turned into points. The Wallabies scrum struggled in the second half once Tupou and Bell went off.
There were some decent moments n the second half by Australia, Frost shut down an attacking maul, and Nasser earned a key defensive turnover 5 metres out from his own line. Both were unfortunately followed by poor clearances by the Wallabies and led to the Pumas scoring in the 48th minute to go ahead. 24-20 to Argentina.
Australia were technically still in it, and the lineout was working well but the Wallabies couldn’t get any field position, and Argentina scored again to go to 31-20 after 57 minutes. It came from a very technical but correct penalty for not retreating when in front of the kicker. A soft penalty to give away when the game was in the balance.
It would be easy to say that the Wallabies were rubbish for the rest of the game (where Argentina score 43 points in 30 minutes), but that would be taking away from the performance that Los Pumas put on. They were excellent in defence and forced Australia into error. Their attack was scintillating with super fast ball at the breakdown, and endless waves of players supporting the ball carrier. Their offloading game was on fire, and they seemed to have extra players on the field. The Wallabies defence did seem to become very passive, with no line speed, and we couldn’t impose any breakdown pressure.
There was a glimmer of hope when the Wallabies scored their only try of the second half to bring it back to 41-27 down, but it was short lived and Los Pumas ran away with it.
Congrats to Argentina, they were excellent, and deserved a resounding victory. If you were a neutral supporter watching the last 30 minutes of that game, you would have to be impressed by the performance of men in blue and white.
Australia v Argentina – 8th September
Anyway, that’s it for me this morning. If watching that wasn’t enough I’m going to go out and play golf, so it’s over to you in the comments section.
Cheers
