Las Pumas came to Twickenham this weekend as the Autumn Internationals continued.
Coming off the back of a hard fought win against Australia, England made it two wins from two so far this series with a comfortable victory against Argentina, running out eventual 31-12 winners.
With an impressively powerful and dynamic first half display allowing England to open up a 24-6 lead at the break, all was set for a rampaging second half performance to strike fear into the New Zealand players ahead of next week’s big showdown. But like all good English sports teams, they failed to kick on and spent the rest of the second half conspiring to bore the Twickenham crowd into submission. The final score line will hardly leave messes McCaw and Carter quaking in their rugby boots.
In fairness England began the contest in confident fashion. After Farrell had slotted home a couple of penalties, only for Argentina to reply with 6 points of their own, England’s back line sprung into action mid way through the first half. First Billy Twelvetrees – the excellently named England centre- barged his way past some woeful Argentine defending and over the try line, before Chris Ashton got his first try in five tests, sliding in to finish in the corner. And with Farrell composed with the boot to secure the extra points England were well on top.
Unfortunately this is where the match report could have ended as the second half can be summed up in very few words. If we are being kind, mundane. If we are not, boring as hell. Any attacking threat from Argentina was quashed at source by a fairly well organised England defensive line and while replacement forward Ben Morgan added some distance between the teams, marauding in under the posts following a good line out from England with four minutes to go, the home side will have to improve dramatically if they hope to secure a second successive win against the All Blacks next weekend.
All eyes will certainly be on that encounter which is the one, if truth be told, everyone has been waiting for. Good wins against Australia and Argentina are a nice way to build up to the game but head coach Stuart Lancaster knows that anything but a determined and proud performance against the best team in the world will mean England’s autumn series will be deemed a failure.
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