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Argentina shock a worryingly blunt England in Twickenham

By PA
Ignacio Ruiz of Argentina celebrates their side's win after the final whistle of the Autumn International match between England and Argentina at Twickenham Stadium on November 06, 2022 in London, England. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

England made a disastrous start to the autumn after Emiliano Boffelli inspired Argentina to only their second ever victory at Twickenham with a 30-29 win.

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Two tries in quick succession by Boffelli and Santiago Carreras catapulted the Pumas into a 24-16 lead with 30 minutes to go as they looked to end a 10-Test losing run in the fixture.

But 29 seconds after coming on as a replacement for Ben Youngs, scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet raced clear from a ruck to slide over the line and, with Owen Farrell kicking a penalty, England appeared to have emerged from the crisis.

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Boffelli had other ideas, however, as he kept hitting the target in an individial 25-point haul that gives Argentina a psychological edge ahead of their group clash at next year’s World Cup.

A flat afternoon only came to life when Argentina, led by Australian coach Michael Cheika, found the keys to the home defence and it took Van Poortvliet’s quick wits to keep England in contention.

Manu Tuilagi made his first England appearance in a year because of hamstring and knee injuries but he limped off in the 67th minute having made a muscular impact up until that point.

It was also an encouraging afternoon for giant wing Joe Cokanasiga, who was a far greater threat than in the July series opener against Australia after which he was dropped.

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But otherwise it was a dismal display from the hosts as the Pumas emulated their breakthrough in 2006 by storming Twickenham.

Heavy rain through the morning took its toll on the spectacle, making handling treacherous early on, but England were also guilty of snatching at their passes.

Drizzle gave way to bright sunshine as debutant second row Alex Coles made an off-the-ball tackle and then dropped a restart, helping Boffelli kick Argentina into the lead.

For the first time England launched Tuilagi and Cokanasiga, forcing the Pumas defence to scramble, and their reward was a sustained spell of pressure spearheaded by the scrum.

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Pinned on their line, Argentina were ahead on the scoreboard only but even that was shattered in the 25th minute when Cokanasiga used his strength to crash over the line after being picked out by Youngs.

Boffelli kept the Pumas in the hunt with another successful kick but their visits into the home half were rare in a match that was struggling to get out of first gear and, to illustrate the point, Farrell and the goalkicking wing exchanged penalties.

Six minutes into the second half Argentina burst into life, executing a pinpoint backs move off a scrum that saw Boffelli slide over in the corner.

Stung by the score, England attacked through Cokanasiga and Marcus Smith but the energy was sucked out of the move and then disaster struck when Farrell’s pass to Billy Vunipola landed on the floor.

Farrell stuck his arm up in claim of a Pumas knock-on but no offence was spotted by the TMO and so Carreras’ try was allowed to stand.

With no one at home around the breakdown for Argentina, Van Poortvliet showed his wits to score an opportunist touchdown that made England breathe a little easier.

But Farrell and Boffelli resumed trading penalties that meant Argentina led 30-29 heading into the decisive phase of the game.

Worryingly for England, they were pegged back deep in their own half and, as the clock ran down, they launched a do or die attack that was snuffed out on the halfway line, allowing the Pumas to celebrate victory.

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Comments

3 Comments
C
Chris 746 days ago

Well this made my day 🤣😂 vamos!

M
Marcus 746 days ago

Well done Argentina. Excellent win.

England; playing Farrel outside of Smith is like asking Smith to play in Wellington boots.

Why does Jones dislike fast wingers; Nowell is industrious but does he scare an international backline?

J
Jmann 746 days ago

I'm not shocked at all

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JW 50 minutes ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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