Argentina vs Australia match report, second Test of the Flight Centre Series for the Puma Trophy, Estadio Malvinas Argentinas, Mendoza, Saturday 5 September.
Argentina led 28-21 with a quarter of an hour left and lost two men to deliberate knock-downs inside a minute. Then they held a 28-28 draw with thirteen against fifteen. The Wallabies leave Mendoza with a series won by one victory and one draw, and with the Puma Trophy, which by Rugby Australia’s own account is back in Australian hands for the first time since 2022. No Australian side had won a tour in Argentina before.
Argentina and Australia drew 28-28 at Estadio Malvinas Argentinas on Saturday 5 September, level at 14-14 at the break and four tries each. Australia take the two-Test series after the 27-21 win in Jujuy a week earlier. James Doleman showed four yellow cards: both locks in the first half for the same offence, and two Pumas backs in the second for the same offence.
Pablo Matera scored twice for the home side and made the steal on 72 minutes that kept the draw alive. Harry Wilson, back as captain after sitting out Jujuy, scored once, had another taken away, and made the tackle on the final play.
The number of the night was two. Two quick taps inside the Pumas 22 gave Australia their first two tries. Two Argentine hands, a minute apart, gave them their fourth.
Discipline or skills? The argument is at the bottom, and the comments are open.
A flag, then Wilson anyway
Filipo Daugunu dropped the kick-off, Argentina had a scrum inside the Australian 22 before the clock had settled, and Joaquín Moro tapped the free kick that came from it. The big carriers came around the corner, and Josh Canham waited on the floor five metres from his own line and won the ball back.
For the next quarter of an hour nobody held onto the ball. Taniela Tupou was penalised at a scrum on six minutes and Nicolás Roger, with a lineout in the Australian 22 on offer, kicked the penalty dead. Daugunu’s shot on Faustino Sánchez Valarolo forced another knock-on.
Then the Wallabies scored, or thought they had. Off a short lineout on the right, Fraser McReight and Ryan Lonergan worked the blind side and Wilson ran in. Gianluca Gnecchi’s flag was already up. Lonergan had a foot in touch when he passed the ball back infield, and the TMO took the try off the board.
Daugunu had gone off for a head assessment by then, with Carter Gordon on at fly-half and Ben Donaldson moved to fullback, and the reshuffled backline made the next one count. Off the top of a lineout Gordon’s short pass sent Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii onto an angle at pace, and on 21 minutes Wilson rode two tacklers and spun over. Lonergan converted for 7-0.
Two quick taps and a yellow card
In Jujuy, Matt Giteau’s complaint was that the penalties Australia won slowed them down, because every one went to the corner and handed the Pumas a reset. In Mendoza they tapped.
Rob Valetini’s first heavy carry of the night earned a penalty on 26 minutes and an Argentine mouth cost ten more metres. Australia tapped six metres out. Angus Bell was held up over the line with another Puma slowing the ball down, and Franco Molina, with his team already on a warning, went to the sin bin on 27.
They tapped again. Lonergan used Tupou as a pivot, and Max Jorgensen had three men outside him on the left and no intention of using any of them. 14-0 on 28 minutes, with Daugunu back on the field having passed his assessment.
Read also: the back-row piece that said Valetini should be the 20 in Mendoza, with Charlie Cale missing out. Cale replaced him on 65 and won the turnover behind Australia’s last real chance.
Eighty-three per cent
Argentina’s answer was to stop passing. From the restart the Pumas went through double figures of phases, all of it pick-and-go and one-out runners, and got nowhere until Roger threw a speculative pass to nobody. Doleman came back for the advantage, and after a look at the screen Jeremy Williams was binned on 34 for diving off his feet inside his own 22. Both locks gone, and Argentina chose the scrum.
It won a penalty five metres out. Short carries around the corner opened a crack, and Matera burst through it under the posts on 36. Santiago Carreras converted.
Two poor kicks, one from Tom Wright across the field and one from Roger off a standing start, handed Argentina a lineout on the Australian 22. This time they used a shape. Moro carried to the line off a midfield pod and slipped the inside ball to Ignacio Mendy, who ran through the hole the shift had opened. 14-14 on 39 minutes.
By ABC’s count the Pumas had 83 per cent of the ball in the last ten minutes of the half, and they nearly had more. Wright led with a forearm into Simón Benítez Cruz after the hooter and was penalised without a card, Argentina took two scrums five metres out, and Moro was held inches short before Suaalii’s shoot on a floated pass ended the half.
McReight burrows, Ruiz answers
Australia’s scrum won a penalty on 44 and Donaldson’s kick bought a lineout five metres out. After Jorgensen had been hauled down in the corner under advantage, they tapped again. McReight picked off the floor and put his body through three tacklers. 21-14 on 47.
Argentina were level within eight minutes, and the mechanism was the one that hurt Australia in Jujuy. Daugunu’s steal over the ball got the Wallabies out of their 22 once. Then the Australian scrum gave up a free kick in the same zone and the Pumas tapped. The forwards carried into heavy traffic, and Ignacio Ruiz, who had been flattened by Valetini a few minutes earlier, took the contact and scored on 55. Carreras again. 21-21.
Twenty-three phases, then two hands
Les Kiss changed his fly-half on 55 and his entire front row between 51 and 58, Massimo De Lutiis, the 1,000th man to wear the jersey, among them. The lead still went the other way.
A lineout on the Australian 10-metre line became a maul that rumbled 15 metres, Ruiz was held up over the line, and a gold shirt entering the ruck from the side let Carreras kick the penalty to the corner. Australia stopped the second maul, but the Pumas kept it on the fringes and went to 23 phases, on the Guardian’s count, nearly every one a one-off runner or a pick, until Matera slammed it down under the posts on 65. 28-21. Argentina in front for the first time, with rain starting to fall and a first win in Mendoza since 2018 about fifteen minutes away.
Then Wilson slipped a soft pass towards McReight in the right tram, and Lucio Cinti put a hand out. Deliberate knock-on, yellow card on 69, lineout on the Pumas 22.
Australia went right to left through the hands and got within a metre. The final pass was for Daugunu, and it met Carreras’s outstretched arm. Penalty try and a second yellow card. 28-28, and Argentina had thirteen men for the last ten minutes.
Nine minutes Australia could not finish
Fifteen against thirteen, with the ball, in the rain. Australia did not score, and the ball was on the floor twice.
Matera got over the ball on 72 as Wright and Jorgensen built down the right, and won the steal. Cale won it back on 76 and Wright toed ahead down the left with six gold shirts chasing. Lonergan got there first and lost it as he slid inside the 22. Taken cleanly, that was a try. Gordon had been forced off on 69, so Lonergan was at fly-half with Kalani Thomas at nine, and on 78 his pass out the back to Wright went forward on the edge of the 22.
The rain that began around Matera’s try is in all of it. A wet ball skids off a sliding chest, a pass out the back arrives with nothing to grip, and a beaten defender’s hand goes out because it is the only thing he can still move faster than the ball. Two knock-downs and two drops came out of the same twelve minutes.
Cinti came back. Carreras came back. Argentina ran the last minute from their own 22 and went backwards. McReight nearly stole it and Wilson nailed Roger behind the gainline. Roger kicked the ball into touch. 28-28.
What each side takes home
Australia take the trophy and the record. They scored four tries with a backline reshuffled before the first one and a front row changed on the hour, and they are still unbeaten under Kiss, with South Africa next up in Australia later this month. They also twice reached the Pumas 22 with a two-man advantage and dropped the ball both times. The series is won. Monday’s review starts at the 76th minute.
Argentina go home with the harder review. Their pack won the point of contact from the half hour onwards, and all four of their tries came from close range or off a first-phase strike. Three yellow cards took a home win off them. In the Argentina ratings from Jujuy Moro was the best of the forwards. Matera takes that mark this time, and Felipe Contepomi will not be consoled by it.
Read next: the player ratings for both sides. A 7.5 for Wilson, and a 7 for Lonergan that will be argued down, and an 8.5 for Matera, with a 7 for Cinti that survives a yellow card.
Your turn
Two ways to read the last fifteen minutes. Either Argentina put two hands on a Test they had already won, or Australia, with two extra men and the ball in the Pumas 22 twice, could not finish a series they should have sealed. One is a discipline problem and the other is a skills problem. Say which one walks out of Mendoza, with the minute attached.\
Argentina vs Australia match report: scorers and officials
Argentina 28 (14) – Tries: Pablo Matera (2), Ignacio Mendy, Ignacio Ruiz. Conversions: Santiago Carreras (4).
Australia 28 (14) – Tries: Harry Wilson, Max Jorgensen, Fraser McReight, penalty try. Conversions: Ryan Lonergan (3).
Yellow cards: Franco Molina (Argentina, 27 minutes), Jeremy Williams (Australia, 34), Lucio Cinti (Argentina, 69), Santiago Carreras (Argentina, 70). Referee: James Doleman. Assistant referees: Ben O’Keeffe, Gianluca Gnecchi. TMO: Glenn Newman. Minutes are from the Guardian’s live coverage.
The teams
Argentina: 1 Boris Wenger, 2 Ignacio Ruiz, 3 Pedro Delgado, 4 Efraín Elías, 5 Franco Molina, 6 Pablo Matera (captain), 7 Guido Petti, 8 Joaquín Moro, 9 Simón Benítez Cruz, 10 Nicolás Roger, 11 Ignacio Mendy, 12 Faustino Sánchez Valarolo, 13 Lucio Cinti, 14 Rodrigo Isgró, 15 Santiago Carreras.
Replacements: Leonel Oviedo, Mayco Vivas, Francisco Moreno, Tomás Lavanini, Juan Martín Scelzo, Facundo Cardozo, Gonzalo Bertranou, Mateo Soler.
Australia: 1 Angus Bell, 2 Billy Pollard, 3 Taniela Tupou, 4 Josh Canham, 5 Jeremy Williams, 6 Rob Valetini, 7 Fraser McReight, 8 Harry Wilson (captain), 9 Ryan Lonergan, 10 Ben Donaldson, 11 Filipo Daugunu, 12 Len Ikitau, 13 Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, 14 Max Jorgensen, 15 Tom Wright.
Replacements: Josh Nasser, Aidan Ross, Massimo De Lutiis, Lukhan Salakaia-Loto, Charlie Cale, Kalani Thomas, Carter Gordon, Isaac Henry.
