Analysis: Why Argentina-England was a Test classic
Our resident analyst reviews some of the best attacking rugby on show between Argentina and England in San Juan.
While the Lions are engaging in arm wrestles down in New Zealand, with the exception of the excellent Tuesday morning game against the Highlanders, the rest of the rugby world have given their defences the summer off.
Only two of the eight games on Saturday featured the winning team scoring fewer than 30 points; Canada 0-13 Georgia and Brazil 25-21 Portugal.
Of the remaining six games, only Italy against Scotland featured fewer than 50 points. After a long season, there’s a sense of the last day of term as the attack hits their stride, creating incredible games which appeal to the neutral.
One of the finest games this season, and recent years, was the Argentina vs England Test on Saturday. England somehow emerged victorious despite a huge possession and territory deficit. The game saw 1,077m, 17 clean breaks, 26 offloads and eight tries; it was on primetime BBC in the UK and was a captivating spectacle for the millions who watched, including plenty who wouldn’t have been rugby fans.
What both teams showed was a fantastic ability to run the ball from deep and constantly put pressure on the defence. The support lines and offloads were magical and the handling was something which any team would be proud.
During this article, we’ll look at how they did this and the blueprint that other teams can follow. The key for both teams is that they try, as much as possible, to keep the ball off the floor.
Agustín Creevy, along with Dane Coles, is one of the greatest hookers in the modern era and given his handling skills, it’s no surprise that he has had stints at flanker previously. After turnover ball from the lineout, he carries forward and, instead of dragging his pack to one side of the pitch, he just flicks the ball up to Martín Landajo.
England have their own ball playing front row, Ellis Genge, and he links up with fellow prop Harry Williams to kick start the phase of play which ends with Marland Yarde scoring in the corner.
For the ensuing two breakdowns, England don’t let a ruck form. In the below example, Danny Care rolls the ball back for Mike Brown to pick up and continue the attack. In the entire try scoring process only one defender is beaten, the prop Enrique Pieretto, who is rounded by Yarde as he scores, the second example down.
England go virtually the length of the pitch and only beat one man by constantly playing quick ball and getting behind the defence.
The other thing that you need is, confusingly, the aerial advantage. It might sound counter intuitive, but kicking the ball creates broken field which you can then attack. At various points, both England and Argentina enjoyed controlling the skies.
In this first example, Nicolás Sánchez hoists the ball up into a dangerous position; close enough to the gain line to allow the back tracking English forwards to get in the way of the onrushing Brown but also far enough downfield that there’s a gain to be made. In the end, Argentina win the ball back and they’re now attacking broken field as with turnover ball.
England snatched the initiative back at the start of the second half from a restart after George Ford’s penalty. It’s much easier not to allow a broken field to form from a restart; after all, you all get to start in a line.
However, Argentina get caught too narrow and Henry Slade spots the hole left by the two fastest Argentineans, we can call them gunners, coming up on the near side. He feeds the man on the inside, Yarde, and England get a massive territorial gain.
Brown struggled under the high ball throughout the game and Argentina were happy to thump their kicks into the low sun. Although the below example only resulted in a scrum, it’s yet more evidence of the home side kicking to compete and being presented with a broken field.
The other key to getting quick ball and playing with ball in hand, is not relying on your scrum-half to pass from the base of a ruck. Yes, there’s nothing more irritating than watching a lumbering prop hurl a pass over the head of your fly-half. But, there’s also nothing like watching your team wait for the scrum-half to get there as the ball lies perfectly placed at the back of the ruck and the overlap disappears.
In the clip above, Ellis Genge fills in and keeps the pace of the attack up and allows England to continue storming up the field.
It’s not always a good idea though, the Pumas were guilty of getting a bit ahead of themselves and playing too much from the base of the ruck, as in the above example. After Ramiro Moyano’s spectacular break, with the English defence turned around and unorganised, a nice spun pass from the scrum-half was what was called for.
Lastly, you can’t beat teams just by running around them anymore. You need to manipulate defences with quick hands and excellent running lines. The above example is from the opening action of Joaquín Tuculet’s sensational try, where the Pumas went the length of the field from kick off.
The first thing to look at is the handling ability in midfield; every offload takes place behind the English player, making it almost impossible to defend. The second thing, is look at the final pass, I challenge you to find a better pass than that – quarter of the field, at pace, to hit his winger in stride. A piece of brilliance from Matías Orlando.
England weren’t to be outdone though. The above example might look relatively straightforward but this is a fairly long pass by Ford, as he is running away from his target with an ever decreasing window in which to put the ball. Again, it looks simple, but this is so hard to do and any slight error brings the attack grinding to a halt.
You can of course also pass with your feet, and both teams were clearly showing off some recent kicking practice. The first Argentinian try is just magical, this grubber through by Sánchez is perfectly judged and weighted, like a low wedge straight into the hole at the 18th in the final round of the Open.
Slade matches this though, trying to decide which is better is like trying to decide which one of your kids you prefer. Slade probably does a little more than Sánchez in the lead up but both are perfect examples of the skills that the two teams had on show.
We’ll finish with this above example of Argentinian handling, until the finish. This is just wonderful, a fantastic example of how you can stretch the defence if you have the desire to go wide. Plus, you or I can drop an offload, just for a brief second if we were good enough to play in this spectacular game.
Conclusion
There’s no getting away from it, you’re unlikely to see a better game of rugby in 2017, although I hope more than anything that the Lions’ Tests will provide something to savour. Both teams provided a template for how you can keep the ball alive and keep scoring points.
Whether that’s leaning on your kicking game to break up the field, trusting your midfield to deliver crisp pass after crisp pass or never letting a breakdown form.
If you have rugby playing kids, I urge you to show them the highlights, or full game if you can drag them away from their tablet for long enough, to prove that if they stick at it, rugby doesn’t need to be a game where you bludgeon the opposition into submission. Instead, it can be a symphony of skills colliding for the perfect 80 minutes.