The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Townsend rues Scots’ slow start in costly Test loss
Gregor Townsend lamented a poor first-half performance after Scotland suffered a 26-18 defeat to Argentina in San Salvador de Jujuy.
The Scots failed to enter the hosts’ 22 in the opening 40 minutes and went in trailing 18-6 at the break.
They improved after the interval and got themselves level with tries from Mark Bennett and Rory Hutchinson but Argentina pulled away again to win the first of the three-Test series.
“I’m disappointed because we didn’t get going until the second half,” head coach Townsend told Sky Sports.
“That was frustrating. We then got into a position where we believe we could have and should have kicked on, and we didn’t.
“Credit to Argentina, they won a restart and got a try from that and the game then slowed down in the last 20 minutes.
“We needed more to change the momentum in that last 20 minutes.”
The Scots face another two Tests against Argentina over the next two Saturdays, and Townsend knows they must start with more intensity if they are to turn the series around.
“We didn’t have much ball in the first half and we had to defend for a number of phases,” he said. “It was a stop-start game the whole way through with a lot of reset scrums, penalties or errors from both teams.
“Sometimes you’ve got to create your own momentum and you do that with accuracy. In the first half that wasn’t the case.
“The second half was a lot better but we just didn’t kick on in the final quarter.
“We’ve got to take our learnings from what we can do better and also from what Argentina brought today and how we can counter that next week.”
Despite the meek firsthalf showing, captain Grant Gilchrist feels Scotland showed enough to suggest they can get the better of the Pumas over the next two Tests.
“We were below our best in that first half,” said the skipper. “We had a few good defensive sets and hung in there but we didn’t control territory and possession and we were under the cosh for most of the first half.
“We showed what we can do at the start of the second half. At 18-18, I felt the momentum was with us. It’s a game we should have won from that point.
“We didn’t, but I saw enough in that game (to believe) that we can bounce back next week.” The hosts required just four minutes to get on the scoreboard when talisman Nicolas Sanchez kicked a penalty between the posts.
Scotland replied in the 16th minute when Blair Kinghorn kicked a penalty. But the Pumas went three ahead again two minutes later when Sanchez chipped over his second penalty of the match.
It would be the fly-half ’s last involvement in the match, however, as he was forced off in the 21st minute after sustaining an ankle injury.
Emiliano Boffelli of Edinburgh took over kicking duty from Sanchez and he was unsuccessful with his first attempt of the match when his penalty drifted to the right of the posts in the 24th minute.
Scotland took advantage of this reprieve and levelled a minute later when Kinghorn kicked another penalty.
After a relatively tight opening half hour, Argentina turned the screw in the closing 10 minutes of the first half.
With 31 minutes on the clock, the Pumas scored the first try of the game when, after a period of passing and power in front of the Scottish line, Jeronimo de la Fuente eventually forced the ball down despite the best efforts of Ali Price to hold him up. Boffelli hooked his conversion attempt wide.
Four minutes later, Argentina stretched their lead when Santiago Carreras picked up the loose ball and eased his way over the line after Duhan van der Merwe had hauled back the marauding Santiago Cordero. This time Boffelli was successful with his kick, ensuring the Pumas went in at the break with an 18-6 advantage.
Scotland, remarkably, had not entered the Argentina 22 in the first half.
The tourists belatedly sparked into life after the break and hauled themselves back into the game in the 49th minute when Mark Bennett dived over in the left corner after good work by Rory Hutchinson and Kinghorn to set him free. Kinghorn was off target with the penalty.
The Scots’ tails were up and they got themselves a second try in the 55th minute when Hutchinson, in his first appearance for two years, bounded over the line after a lovely lay-off from Kinghorn.
The fly-half duly kicked the conversion to level the scores at 18-18.
Just as the visitors looked to have turned the momentum of the match in their favour, Argentina went straight up the park and edged themselves back in front when Gonzalo Bertranou forced the ball down on the line. Boffelli, with his conversion attempt, missed his third kick of the match.
However, with nine minutes remaining, the Edinburgh man stretched the hosts’ advantage to eight points with a penalty, allowing them to see out the match in relatively comfortable fashion.