The former Wallabies coach watched Mendoza and liked the forwards, the goal-kicker and the method. He did not like where the ball went.
Ryan Lonergan is not watching the ball.
Ewen McKenzie noticed it in Mendoza, and it is the detail that explains how the Wallabies score. “Once they get 10 metres out of the line, Lonergan just stands back. He just watches both sides. You can see him. He’s not even watching the ball. He’s watching out wide, looking for the overlap, the mismatch. They suck enough guys in, bang, they’ll pop it out there. Otherwise the forwards score under the posts.”
That method drew 28-28 in Mendoza on Saturday after two yellow cards in a minute, won the tour with the 27-21 in Jujuy, and brought the Puma Trophy home. Wallabies vs Argentina finished one win and one draw, and McKenzie, 51 Tests at tighthead prop for the Wallabies and their head coach in 2013 and 2014, said on Rugby Unity on Monday that the method works. Then he said the sentence that decides whether it keeps working, with the Springboks in Perth three weeks away. “Whether it’s going to work against South Africa, that’ll be interesting.”
He was polite about it. The numbers underneath are not.
All the passion, none of the patience
McKenzie’s notes on Argentina were written in the stadium. “I wrote it down. Argentina: all the passion, enthusiasm, without the discipline and patience.” They “came out with the kitchen sink and they got stuck in”, he said, “but it didn’t necessarily convert into points. It took a long time for them to get points.”
Then the two hands. Lucio Cinti’s on 69 minutes, Santiago Carreras’s on 70 with a penalty try attached, and 13 men for the last ten. “I didn’t think the first one was a yellow card, for me. The second one, maybe, which turned out to be a penalty try. All those things had a big impact on the game.” The Argentina ratings gave an 8.5 for Matera, with a 7 for Cinti that survives a yellow card.
What McKenzie expected next did not happen. “The last ten minutes, playing 15 on 13, I thought Australia was going to win by a couple of tries. But Argentina managed that last ten minutes.” His reading of the draw: “In the end, it was probably the right result for what occurred on the field.”
The forwards are doing the job
“Australia were good,” McKenzie said. “Their forwards are doing a good job.”
The tour says so. Eight Wallabies tries in two Tests, and five of them scored by forwards: Brandon Paenga-Amosa, Fraser McReight twice, Tom Hooper and Harry Wilson. The backline’s share is Max Jorgensen in Mendoza, Carter Gordon in Jujuy, and a penalty try awarded when Santiago Carreras put a hand on a pass meant for Filipo Daugunu.
McKenzie does not think that is an accident. “There’s certainly some really good stuff, and you can see it now on their phase play.” The Lonergan pattern above is the method, and it is a good one against a side that defends narrow and tires. A week earlier the Wallabies won the penalty count in Jujuy and it cost them 35 minutes, because the forwards-first game only pays when the tempo holds.
The backs are not touching the ball
The part he did not like was shorter.
“We’re not seeing the cohesion from the backline. You’d like to think it’s there… I’d just like to see the interchange between relying on the forwards and getting more out of the backline, because there are guys out there who’ve got ability and they’re not touching the ball as much as I’d like them to touch the ball.”
Two tries from the backs in 160 minutes, and a penalty try for a pass that never arrived, is the evidence. Carter Gordon, the one back who scored in Jujuy, left Mendoza on 69 minutes with contact to the lower leg and went for scans. The men outside Lonergan in Perth will have played most of a tour as a decoy line.
McKenzie’s fix is the obvious one and the hard one: the same forwards, the same Lonergan, and a decision made two phases earlier to move the ball before the mismatch is certain. A backline that only gets the ball when the overlap is already there never learns to make one.
Read also: the All Blacks have kicked no penalty goals in three Tests against the Springboks and are 2-1 down. The Wallabies do not have that problem, and McKenzie knows why.
Lonergan is the point of difference
“Australia with Lonergan goal-kicking has been very successful, and it’s an area that hasn’t always been so good for Australia,” McKenzie said. “If I’m looking for points of difference, he’s an important cog. You’ve got to be able to take the points, and that’s the difference between a win and a draw.”
Six from seven on the tour: two conversions from three and a penalty in Jujuy, three from three in Mendoza, 13 points and the tour’s top scorer. The Wallabies ratings gave him a 7 that will be argued down in the comments, which is where the rest of this belongs.
Wallabies vs Argentina showed the method. Perth tests it.
The Springboks play the Wallabies at Optus Stadium on Sunday 27 September for the Nelson Mandela Challenge Plate, a fortnight after Baltimore, with the rest of the year laid out in the Wallabies 2026 Test schedule.
Steve Hansen said the thing on Monday that every side arriving to play South Africa has to hear. “You’re not going to beat the Boks until you can get par at scrum time and you can get decent ball in the lineout.” A method that scores through forwards under the posts runs straight into the eight-man scrum that took a penalty try off New Zealand in Soweto and a maul defence that held the All Blacks out on their own line. The Springboks concede tries wide, off a beaten edge. They do not concede many through the middle.
The site’s line has been the same since August: you do not break the Springboks, you make them kick. That takes a backline that has touched the ball.
McKenzie’s method won a tour in Argentina. Les Kiss has three weeks to decide whether it is a plan or a habit.
Frequently asked
How did Wallabies vs Argentina finish?
Australia won 27-21 in Jujuy on Saturday 29 August and drew 28-28 in Mendoza on Saturday 5 September, taking the two-Test series and the Puma Trophy. It was the first tour win by an Australian side in Argentina.
When do the Wallabies play the Springboks in 2026?
Sunday 27 September at Optus Stadium in Perth, for the Nelson Mandela Challenge Plate. It is the only Springboks Test in Australia this year.
What did Ewen McKenzie say about the Wallabies after Mendoza?
On Rugby Unity on 7 September he said the forwards “are doing a good job”, that Ryan Lonergan’s goal-kicking is Australia’s point of difference, and that the backs “are not touching the ball as much as I’d like them to touch the ball”. Asked whether the method beats South Africa, he said “that’ll be interesting”.
Read next: a 7.5 for Wilson, and a 7 for Lonergan that will be argued down, because the man McKenzie calls the point of difference is the one the ratings marked hardest.
Your turn
Two ways for Kiss to go to Perth. Keep the forwards-first method that won a tour and trust Lonergan to take the points, or open it up and give McKenzie the backline he wants against the best scramble defence in the game. One of those loses by ten. Which?
