2021 Rugby Championship: Argentina v Australia

80 days on from the beginning of the tournament, the 2021 Rugby Championship reached its final day, which would see a fourth and final double header. First up on the final day was Australia’s chance to secure 2ⁿᵈ place in the standings with an “away” match against winless Argentina.

After both Quade Cooper and Emiliano Boffelli missed early penalty attempts in the opening minutes, it was Cooper who opened the scoring off the tee following a scrum offence, while Santiago Carreras’ attempted drop goal from halfway following an Australian goal-line drop-out sailed just wide. In a tight first half, the Wallabies finally found a breakthrough as the half hour approached, after a series of infringements at the lineout saw Tomás Lavanini sent to the sin bin, making him the most-carded player in the history of Test rugby. Though the Pumas sacked the resulting Australian lineout, the Wallabies successfully set up a new maul, which successfully escorted Folau Fainga’a to the line for the opening try. With Lavanini still in the bin, the Wallabies struck again at a lineout, setting the maul, but with Hooper peeling off at the back and feeding a looping Fainga’a. After drawing the defence, the hooker sent Rob Valentini through on a crash ball, and the back row duly released Andrew Kellaway to extend the lead. As the half came to an end and Lavanini returned to the pitch, Emilia Boffelli finally got the South Americans on the scoreboard with a penalty following a series of offences by the Australians 5 metres out from their line, cutting the hosts’ lead at the break to 3-15.

If it felt like a mistake to settle for 3 points at the end of the first half, it looked even worse just minutes into the second period, as Samu Kerevi and Andrew Kellaway came around the corner at the last minte to create a numbers advantage, and a double pump from Cooper created the gap for Kerevi to go over. 10 minutes later, another series of phases in the Pumas 22 ended in a try as Kellaway successfully dummied Matías Moroni and broke through the tackle of Santiago Chocobares to go over for his second try. Just minutes later, Australia used the same lineout move that proved so successful earlier in the match, but as the Pumas defence tightened up to protect against the crash ball, Fainga’a instead spread the ball to the backs, and when Len Ikitau attacked a massive gap out wide, he drew the defence and flicked the ball onto Kellaway to complete his hat-trick. With the game out of sight, the game opened up more going into the final quarter as the replacements came on, and when the Pumas finally made it back into the Australian 22 for the first time of note since the first half, replacement loosehead Thomas Gallo forced himself over for a try on his debut. Argentina were finishing on a high, and when they found themselves 5m out from the Wallabies line, Chocobares sniped off the back of a ruck but was stopped just short, only to transfer the ball to Gallo, who forced his way over to dot down for a second try, which gave the score a much more respectable look. As the match came to an end, Australian captain Michael Hooper was sent to the bin for killing the ball following a break from Julián Montoya, but after the Pumas went to the corner, the Wallabies successfully held out the maul to complete a 17-32 victory.

Julián Montoya is a fantastic hooker and a great all-round player. However, as captain of the Pumas, I think that he made a costly mistake today. This came in the final moments of the first half. At 0-15 down and with Lavanini having just returned to the pitch following his yellow card, the Pumas were camped on the Wallabies’ 5m line. The wallabies had given away 4 penalties in succession for a range of offences and arguably should have had a man in the bin as a no-arms tackle from Taniela Tupou on Gonzalo Bertranou went unpunished, but were just being put on a warning.

At this point, Montoya chose to take the easy 3 points to guarantee they were off the mark, but for me there was only one real option here: continue pushing for the line, either with another lineout or a tap-and-go penalty. This was the first time that they had been in any position to threaten the try line in the entire game, and (barring any unforced errors) should have resulted in either a try for the Pumas or a yellow card for one of the Australians at the next penalty (or possibly both).

However by going for the posts, Argentina let the Wallabies off the hook. They didn’t get back into the Australian 22 for 20 minutes, by which point the warning was long gone and Australia had scored 3 more tries to run away with the game. While I still feel like the Wallabies would have gone on to win the game, I think that a different decision here by Montoya could have led to a closer game.

Australia are in a historic spot. Having started the tournament with 2 bad defeats to the All Blacks, the Wallabies won 4 consecutive matches in the tournament for the first time ever on their way to finishing 2ⁿᵈ in the tournament standings and climbing to 3ʳᵈ in the World rankings.

While they are certainly on the up and have developed so much more depth by bringing through the kids over the last couple of seasons and now bringing back a number of veterans from abroad, fans should not get carried away just yet. While they have largely dominated the games against Argentina, they have never fully killed the game off, and that let the Pumas back in to some degree in both matches. Against a better team, these lapses in control could have proved critical.

Australia are on the up, but they are not the 3ʳᵈ best team in the world, they are instead there through the weakness of weekly updates to the World rankings, which will see winning teams leapfrog teams that are not playing due to the way the global calendar is set out (expect to see a couple of the Six Nations teams rise up the rankings in the spring).

The key for the Wallabies now is to build on this in their Autumn Tests against Japan, Scotland, England and Wales, continuing the strong performances, getting as many wins as they can (I think 3 is realistic, potentially 4 depending which England turns up) and hopefully changing the team up a little to avoid a reliance on one or two stars. If the Wallabies can do this, that is when it is time to start getting excited.