Pumas prove too strong for Scotland

By Mark Stevens
2/7/22

Argentina thwarted an all-too-brief Scotland fightback to win the first of their three-match summer series.

Nicolas Sanchez and Blair Kinghorn had traded penalties before quickfire tries from Jeronimo de la Fuente and Santiago Carreras put Argentina in control.

Two tries within four minutes from Mark Bennett and Rory Hutchinson shortly after the break drew Scotland level.

But Gonzalo Bertranou replied almost immediately and Emiliano Boffelli's penalty secured a deserved victory.

In truth, a win in Jujuy would have flattered Gregor Townsend's side, who were second best for all but that opening spell of the second half.

“I’m disappointed as we didn't get going until the second half, and then when we got into a position from which we should have kicked on, we didn’t,” said the Scotland head coach.

“We did not get much ball and had to defend for a number of phases in that first half. It was a stop-start game throughout which was the nature of the contest with a lot of re-set scrums, penalties and errors from both teams.

"Sometimes you need to make your own momentum and you do that through accurate play and that certainly wasn't the case for us in the first half. The second half was much better but we did not kick on in the final quarter of the game which we needed to do. We need to be better next week and play much closer to our potential to get back into this Test series."