Australia’s new era under Ewan Mekenzie hasn’t gotten off to
what could be called a ‘flying start’ and Argentina come down under with very
realistic prospects of making what’s been a bad situation even worse today and
they can push the Wallabies extremely close for the third straight game in a
row at Perth.
That Ewen Mckenzie’s side lost out to New Zealand twice was
of no great surprise, even with a heavier defeat than anticipated in Sydney,
but if their first loss to South Africa in
5 games and their first loss against the Springboks in eight last week wasn’t
bad enough, the manner was truly horrendous.
Outmuscled in an embarrassing fashion even for Australian
forwards, and embarrassingly manoeuvred in contact and at the breakdown even
taking into account the monstrous size of the Springbok pack – losing the ball
18 times at the breakdown last weekend – South Africa were rarely truly
troubled in defence, waiting for the errors that would allow them to take back
possession or kick for points to build a gap before simply putting the skill on
to exaggerate the winning margin.
Argentina’s worrying defeat to South Africa on the opening
day is now a thing of the past after pushing the Springboks to a single score
defeat in the next week before keeping New Zealand to 15 points in some
atrocious conditions last week, putting together some excellent sustained
phases of play.
The Pumas took the game to the All Blacks at the scrum and
the breakdown, the two main areas of weaknesses for the Wallabies, and can feel
confident of being able to make at least a half decent platform for themselves
to compete upon.
The Wallabies’ dropping of Will Genia seems absurd and while
Nic White has head an excellent season with the Brumbies, there isn’t much
he’ll be able to do differently behind a retreating or stagnant pack and the
loss of the Genia/Cooper partnership may be debilitated by that move. Australia
haven’t beaten a team by more than 8 points since Russia at the 2011 World Cup
and of the many tempting options, a simple wager on Argentina to stay within 11
will do – they lost their two games against the Wallabies by a combined total
of 9.
Advice
1 pt Argentina +11 (10/11 general)
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