Argentina – Australia

The last match of the Rugby Championship will feature Argentina and Australia squaring off at Twickenham, in England. As such, Australia is actually more of the home team, as they will be well supported by their England based community and should feel more at home than Argentina in Britain anyway. The Pumas can still avoid the wooden spoon with a bonus point win, while Australia will likely finish second with a victory.

Argentina made a good account of themselves in this tournament, but the Pumas still only have one win to show for. They are coming after a 19 point loss at home against New Zealand, a match they should have probably lost by 30+ against an All Blacks side that was not even at full strength. Yellow cards for New Zealand and a tremendous second half effort from Argentina allowed the Pumas to lose respectably, but the grueling grind left a lot of scars, with Argentina set to miss a large number of key players ahead of this clash.

Australia was looking horrific in the first couple of games of the Championship, but they quickly won 2 games against South Africa and Argentina to put things back on track, even if they were still far away from their best. That was seen last week in South Africa, when Australia lost 10-18 to a not so great Springbok side. It was a poor performance, even though Australia was the more positive team and the score was a bit harsh. On the bright side, they are showing improvement and the initially dreadful partnership of Foley at No.12 and Cooper at No.10 has started to click. THe Wallabies will feel they should dominate Argentina on the wings in this clash, just like they did in the previous meeting a few weeks ago.

Argentina team news: Argentina is absolutely depleted ahead of this match. Leaving aside Imhoff, Bosch and Ayerza, key players that did not play at all in this Championship, there are now new, massive problems. Argentina’s superstar at No.10 (best penalty taker in this tournament), Sanchez, is out and he will be a colossal absence. Alongside him, Montero, Isa and Cordero are new injuries. That`s 7 crucial players out for Argentina, 4 of them new injuries and there are a couple of other guys missing as well.

Australia team news: The Wallabies also have a serious problem as after Pocock, they have now lost their second choice at No.8, McMahon. Fortunately for Australia, that`s the only fresh roster issue they have.

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Lineups:

Argentina: 15 Joaquín Tuculet, 14 Matías Moroni, 13 Matías Orlando, 12 Jerónimo De la Fuente, 11 Ramiro Moyano, 10 Santiago González Iglesias, 9 Martín Landajo, 8 Leonardo Senatore, 7 Javier Ortega Desio, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Matías Alemanno, 4 Guido Petti, 3 Ramiro Herrera, 2 Agustín Creevy, 1 Lucas Noguera

Australia: 15 Israel Folau, 14 Dane Haylett-Petty, 13 Samu Kerevi, 12 Bernard Foley, 11 Reece Hodge, 10 Quade Cooper, 9 Will Genia, 8 Lopeti Timani, 7 Michael Hooper, 6 Dean Mumm, 5 Adam Coleman, 4 Rory Arnold, 3 Sekope Kepu, 2 Stephen Moore (c), 1 Scott Sio

Australia has regularly dominated Argentina, beating them in 12 of the last 13 H2H meetings – including a 36-20 victory in the previous meeting in this Rugby Championship.

Australia is not a particular good matchup for Argentina due to their very fast backs. Argentina likes to play against teams like South Africa, which have slow backs and allow the Pumas to open the game on the wings. Against Australia, it will be very hard for them to do that, as they will be closed down quickly – as it was the case two rounds ago. For this reason, Argentina will have to rely on their forwards and they should dominate in that department – but that is not enough and will also put additional pressure on their already tired forwards. This matchup is the main reason why Australia has religiously beaten Argentina.

Even with the matchup, if the circumstances were normal, I would actually fancy Argentina to win this fixture (if it were plaid in Argentina), or at least cover the spread. The Australians have plenty of problems and have been poor in this tournament, even if they improved a bit lately. However, there are just too many things going against the Pumas.

The Pumas are simply missing too many key players, I find it impossible for them to cope with this given that they have the least depth of all Rugby Championship teams. Missing so many key guys in rugby is almost impossible to deal with and it has been proved so many times.

Argentina’s bench for this game is weak and they are coming after what truly was a colossal effort against New Zealand just one week ago, a bone cracking, exhausting second half. There’s every possibility that they will return to their usual ways of collapsing in the last 20 minutes (or even earlier), after they played well at the end of games in the last two matches. When legs get tired, they won`t even have the advantage in the scrum and forwards (which worked incredibly hard last week) and could be shred to pieces by Australia on the wings.

With a decimated team, one week after a huge effort against New Zealand and at the end of a grueling tournament, not even having home court advantage, the Pumas might get rolled over in this one. I would not be surprised if Australia runs away with it and wins by a large margin. The Wallabies are better, much more fit, quicker, have more depth and own a H2H matchup advantage. My tip is Australia to cover the 7,5 point spread and personally I have no regrets in placing this bet with maximum stakes. Prediction: Argentina – Australia 18 – 35.

Pick: Australia -7,5
Odds: 1.91 @ Winner
Stake: 10
Possible profit: 9.10
Event date: 8 October