Vunipola: We’ll take win but it was ugly

MAKO VUNIPOLA branded England’s victory ‘ugly’ but insisted credit needs to go to Argentina for stopping Eddie Jones’ men from turning on the style.

‘You can’t just rock up and put points on them,’ said the loosehead prop, who was named man of the match in the 21-8 win.

‘We expect a lot of ourselves but it was a scrappy game and you have to hand it to Argentina.

‘We’ll take a win even if it was ugly.’

Vunipola’s performance was one of the few high points, with the Saracens front row chalking up 20 tackles, the most by any player on the pitch.

He was realistic enough to accept that massive improvements are required ahead of the showdown with Australia next Saturday.

‘We will celebrate the win and then look at what we did wrong and what we have to work on because we know we’ll have to improve against Australia.’

Try-scorer Nathan Hughes also admitted the squad were left frustrated by the manner of their victory.

‘We wanted to come out here and put in a good performance,’ said Hughes. ‘There were a lot of opportunities to score out there that we didn’t finish off.’

Hughes certainly finished his own chance off. The Wasps back row, only in the side because of an injury to Mako Vunipola’s younger brother Billy, popped up on the wing to score his maiden international try.

Hughes said: ‘Credit to the boys for getting me over the whitewash, I’m happy I caught the ball. There was a lot of glue on my hands. As a No 8 you look at yourself as a goforward person. If you do that, you’ve done your job for the team and the backs can run in the tries.

‘I thought I got my hands on the ball as much as possible.’

Reflecting on whether Owen Farrell will return for the Australia game, coach Jones said: ‘Owen did a great job as a waterboy against Argentina. He could be a good waterboy next week.’