England’s young guns whitewash Argentina
Argentina 25 England 35 Att: 29,750
At the end of another madcap, seesaw match, England again found a way to finish on top as a George Ford drop goal put the exclamation point on a 2-0 series victory over Argentina that featured a season’s worth of thrills and spills.
After last week’s 38-34 win in San Juan, Eddie Jones had predicted that this would be more of a “slugathon”. For once the England coach’s powers of foresight proved wanting as the two sides served up another thriller, low at times on technical quality but always highly entertaining.
Four times England saw their lead wiped out, but each time they responded with the tries coming from Charlie Ewels, Piers Francis, Danny Care and Will Collier. Ford contributed 15 points with the boot while full-back Mike Brown served up two magnificent assists.
This will garner significantly less attention than England’s back-to-back Six Nations Championship victories or last year’s whitewash of Australia under Jones, but as an achievement it was every bit as impressive. With 30 players missing, Jones has called upon players with little or no Premiership experience to forge only England’s second series victory in Argentina.
The last, achieved four years ago under Stuart Lancaster, was when Argentina were missing nearly all their frontline players. This time around, they were fully loaded. Even if they were on a horrible run of form having now lost 11 of their last 13 fixtures, the Pumas remain a formidable proposi- tion. That they are 2019 World Cup pool opponents is an added bonus.
The wider significance is that in his quest to add depth in the build-up to Japan, Jones has been able to give 11 players their debut, the latest of whom, Sam Underhill, delivered a destructive show of force at openside.
Chris Robshaw matched him stride for stride in the back row in a tremendous performance that should resonate loudly with Warren Gatland. If Robshaw – or Joe Launchbury for that matter – fail to represent the Lions because of geography rather than talent then that acts as a damning indictment of what that concept now stands for. Ford too was excellent at fly-half.
“I was really pleased at how we stuck at the game,” Jones said. “We improved our forward play in the second half after being completely outgunned in the first half. We changed the way we kicked and played really well off their mistakes.”
Underhill set the early tone with some ferocious tackling before England took the lead with a move straight from the training paddock. Ewels won clean line-out ball over the top, Nathan Hughes made the initial thrust before Launchbury broke a tackle to send Ewels over.
Just like last week, Argentina’s response was instant. The forwards did the initial work before Emiliano Boffelli burst through the rather soft tackles of Marland Yarde and Brown. The game slowed a touch due to a succession of penalties as Ford and Nicolas Sanchez exchanged a pair of kicks to keep the scores level.
Argentina were enjoying the lion’s share of possession and territory but their progress was halted by some stout English defence. Eventually Argentina overplayed their hand. Perhaps looking to exploit Yarde’s occasionally errant positioning, Sanchez aimed a crossfield chip towards wing Boffelli.
Brown read the play perfectly, plucking the ball from the Argentine’s grasp to race into empty field. Eventually he was scragged but not before offloading to Francis to plunge over.
That silenced the crowd but they soon got their voices back as first Brown and then May were penalised for high tackles. It would get better for the home team. As England worked the ball right, Francis attempted a little grubber to Yarde. Just like Sanchez he came unstuck as flanker Pablo Matera intercepted and dribbled the ball over the line.
Last week’s see-saw was well and truly back. Jeronimo De La Fuente knocked on, Ford gathered, fed Brown and for the second time the full-back acted as provider to send Care over. Three minutes later, Argentina were again level as De La Fuente slipped past Dylan Hartley before Boffelli proceeded to turn Yarde inside out. Sanchez kicked the conversion to make it 25-25. It was breathless stuff.
England’s final try would prove to be slightly more prosaic when Collier was driven over. Ford’s exquisite drop goal with six minutes remaining finally allowed Jones to breathe easy. He will not be able to relax long. In August he must selected a 45-man Elite Player Squad. Choosing who to leave out will be a truly Herculean task.