Argentina v Springboks: Five takeaways as world champions win ‘when nothing is working’ and where Rassie Erasmus ‘will look hardest’
Argentina's Pablo Matera tackled by Eben Etzebeth and an inset of Springboks coach Rassie Erasmus.
Following the Springboks’ 17-10 victory over Argentina, here are our five takeaways from the clash in Buenos Aires.
The top line
South Africa won 17-10 as they did everything in their power to look like a team playing the first game of a tour – which is exactly what they were.
Rassie Erasmus made 13 changes from the 43-0 win over Wales. Siya Kolisi, Eben Etzebeth, Lood de Jager and Sacha Feinberg-Fngomezulu were all playing their first rugby of 2026, and the front five had never packed down together. There was no rhythm in anything they did; they were second best in the air, second best at the breakdown and second best in the loose. But they won anyway, and that is what world champions do when nothing is working.
Erasmus said beforehand that he wanted a hard Test to get his returning players back into full swing. He got exactly what he asked for, and whilst he’ll be pleased at the result, his day was somewhat spoiled when Kolisi went off inside half an hour holding his left leg, a fortnight before the All Blacks arrive.
The scrum won it, and it nearly lost it
Thomas du Toit went to ground at the first scrum of the match and Argentina had a penalty. They kicked to the corner, drove it, Matera carried off the tail and popped for Benjamín Grondona to go through the fold. Ten-three, and, much against prematch perceived wisdom, the platform South Africa were supposed to own had handed the home side the lead.
Nothing much else worked at close quarters either, much to their own frustration. Their maul was collapsed twice inside the Argentine 22 and Christophe Ridley stayed with the penalty each time, correctly, because the maul on each occasion was going nowhere slowly and lacked the snap and momentum we expect from the Boks. Their throw was stolen at a third attacking lineout and the exit that followed gave away seventy metres and finished with Aphelele Fassi calling a mark on his own line.
Then Hanekom scored off a scrum that went straight through Tomás Rapetti on 63 minutes.
But the simple maths is seven scrums, seven won. Argentina had two all night. When a side has no shape and no confidence, the eight-man shove is the one thing that needs neither, and, once again, that incredible set-piece is the reason South Africa are flying to Cape Town with a win.
The spine did not turn up
Fassi and Cobus Reinach were the only starters kept from the Wales team. They were meant to hold the shape whilst thirteen changes settled around them, yet they were amongst the two least convincing Springboks on the pitch, and Feinberg-Mngomezulu, in unusually stuttering and sluggish mode, made it three.
The kicking from nine and ten went long, past its own chase, over and over again. That turned every contest into a gift and Rodrigo Isgró took the lot. He and Ignacio Mendy were the best wing pairing in the match by a distance; Mendy made four clean breaks, more than anyone on either side, but to South Africa’s credit, they never fully managed to get around the proud Bok scramble.
Feinberg-Mngomezulu attacked the gainline hard early, which answered the ankle question inside ten minutes. But for some reason, instead of running a backline, he chased the explosive option all night and looked indecisive doing it as a result. A Kolisi carrying sequence near the line broke down in a knock-on because nobody knew whether the ball was going tight or wide. Kolisi departed with a calf issue, but Feinberg-Mngomezulu carried 24 times, second only to Johan Grobbelaar, and Rassie Erasmus will wait anxiously for the news on his talisman.
Santiago Carreras, a full-back wearing ten only because Tomás Albornoz is serving four matches, ran the game better than the man opposite him and, surprisingly, he also won more turnovers than any player on the field, also doubling back as an auxiliary full-back in defence to return SA kicks, something that the Boks really failed to exploit.
Matera was the best player on the pitch
He was captain by default, with Julián Montoya unavailable, and he played like a man who had taken that opportunity to remind all that, at 33, he’s still one of the absolute elite back rows of the modern game. In fact, there’s so much Springbok in Matera’s style, and it’s said that South Africa both fear and relish playing against South America’s finest flank forward.
He carried off the tail of the maul to make Grondona’s try. He was in the middle of the goal-line stand that held André Esterhuizen up over the line in the second half. He beat more defenders than anyone in the match, six of them, and made 14 tackles with both his back row partners already off.
Then came the 50:22, off the weaker foot, from a position where Argentina had run out of any other way to get up the field. A 33-year-old injury-plagued flanker manufactured a lineout on the Springbok line in the 79th minute.
Los Pumas got the penalty from it and went for the corner with a tap instead of a kick, backing the carriers they had left rather than a lineout drive without their locks. 17 phases later Ridley blew for the knock-on. Matera did everything a number six can do in a Test match and several things a number six cannot.
Contepomi has found some players
The build-up was all about who Argentina did not have. No Montoya, no Marcos Kremer, no Santiago Chocobares, no Justo Piccardo, no Bautista Delguy, no Joaquín Oviedo, ten uncapped men in the squad and Albornoz banned for confronting Angus Gardner after the England Test. Felipe Contepomi leaves Buenos Aires with more than he arrived with.
Francisco Moreno came out of Tarucas in Super Rugby Americas and held Boan Venter on debut at tighthead, save for one scrum. Grondona, on five caps, scored the try, forced an error on his own line off Kolisi, and was taken off on fifty minutes having emptied himself rather than having faded. Juan Penoucos went on at eight into the exact window South Africa picked a six-two bench for. Mendy and Isgró both shaded their opponents in the battle of the contestables.
Guido Petti was enormous in the tight and called the lineout that stole the Springbok throw. He also gave away the no-arms penalty on his own line that gifted South Africa their best attacking platform of the first half, but he was still the best second row in the game.
Australia come to Jujuy on 29 August and Mendoza on 5 September, and the Nations Championship restarts in Europe in November. Argentina now have players who have been examined at this level rather than merely named in a squad.
Argentina defended better than the world champions
This is the part Erasmus will look at hardest. Argentina pushed up off the line without ever rushing, shoulders tight, spacing intact, taking away South Africa’s time without leaving holes behind the front line for the long pass, a classic moderated push defence.
It was beaten once in 80 minutes. Esterhuizen carried hard enough to make Faustino Sánchez Valarolo and Lucio Cinti bite, which took a defender off the far side and let Edwill van der Merwe get round the cover for the try that levelled it at the break. Van der Merwe finished with 101 running metres and most of them came from that one break.
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South Africa carried 146 times to Argentina’s 101 and had 62 per cent of the territory. They made six clean breaks from it. Ignacio Ruiz made 25 tackles and Joaquín Moro 24, the two highest counts in the game.
At hooker, the outstanding Grobbelaar deserves better than he got from the night around him. He carried 26 times, more than any player on the field, and had a try disallowed for Marco van Staden being in touch. He is not the incumbent hooker, but his emergence in this game gives SA yet another deep layer of cover in their squad.
Elrigh Louw got through 14 tackles, but neither he nor Van Staden made any case at all for the loose forward cover behind Pieter-Steph du Toit, and Jasper Wiese.
Etzebeth played all eighty on his 142nd cap. Erasmus had six forwards on the bench and left his most experienced lock out there for the duration, which is not what a coach does in a warm-up he is enjoying, something that should tell all of the pressure Argentina applied all afternoon.
SA move on to host New Zealand, but they’ll need to be a lot better against the All Blacks, even with home advantage.
READ MORE: Dave Rennie: Rassie Erasmus has done it for eight years, we’ve had two months