Pumas bite Scots as Toony says intensity has got to be upped
ARGENTINA 26 SCOTLAND 18
Gregor Townsend promised that lessons will be learned from Scotland’s defeat to Argentina at Estadio 23 de Agosto in Jujuy last night.
The tourists managed to fight back from 18-6 down at the end of a lacklustre first half to tie the scores with just under an hour played – but then failed to kick on during the final quarter.
The team now have seven days to prepare for their second of their three Tests against Los Pumas in Salta next Saturday evening.
“We didn’t get going until the second half and that was frustrating,” said Townsend afterwards.
“We then got into a position where we believe we could have and should have kicked on, but we didn’t. Credit to Argentina for winning the restart and getting a try off that.
“The game then slowed down so we needed more to change the momentum of that last 20 minutes.
“It was a stop-start contest all the way through, with a lot of scrums and lot of errors from both teams.
“Sometimes you’ve got to create your own momentum and you do that through accuracy, and for a lot of the first half that wasn’t the case in the way we played.
“The second half was better, we just didn’t kick on in the final quarter.”
There were a number of refereeing decisions that didn’t go Scotland’s way but Townsend was in no mood for excuses.
“You’ve got to make the most of the opportunities you have, especially away from home,” he argued.
“You are going to get decisions against you, the big thing for me was the slow nature of the match.
“There was too much stop-start, too much talking while the clock was still on. If that’s the way it is going to be over the course of the series then we’ve got to make sure that we are better and more accurate when the ball is in play to put points on the board.”
“We’ve got to up our intensity at the start of the game. I think Argentina brought more energy then, but after that we had some really good moments in defence.
“The work-rate was good but we’ve got to be more accurate in attack.”
The hosts drew first blood with the game still less than three minutes old when Zander Fagerson was penalised for holding onto
the ball on the deck and Nicolas Sanchez stepped forward to knock over the points.
Scotland struck back with a Blair Kinghorn penalty from directly in front of the posts, but a Darcy Graham misjudgment – catching the restart when his feet were out of play – handed the initiative straight back to the Pumas.
And a line-out penalty gave Sanchez a chance to fire his team right back into the lead.
A neck roll by Matias Orlando allowed Kinghorn to square the contest a few minutes later, but Argentina bounced back immediately with a sweeping attack which led to the opening try.
A wonderful overhead pass from prop Francisco Gomez-kodela sent secondrow Guido Petty into space before Jeronimo de la Fuente powered over a few phases later.
Argentina then doubled-up on the score just four minutes later, when replacement stand-off Santiago Carreras finished off after good broken-field running from Juan Cruz Mallia and Santiago Cordero.
Emiliano Boffelli – who
plays his club rugby for Edinburgh – added the conversion to establish a commanding 18-6 home lead at the break.
Scotland hauled themselves back into the contest when some good link play between Kinghorn and Rory Hutchinson sent Mark Bennett in for his first try since the 2015World Cup on a classic outside-centre arching run.
And when Argentinean indiscipline put Scotland back on the front foot, the tourists took full advantage with Kinghorn sending Hutchinson over on a switch pass.
Kinghorn’s conversion squared the match, but Boffelli won back the restart and Argentina burst back into the lead through a try by scrum-half Gonzalo Bertranou.
Another Boffelli penalty with 10 minutes to go gave Argentina some breathing space and the South Americans had by now regained almost complete control of possession and territory.