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All Blacks, Scotland lose out due to Argentina’s Rugby Championship heroics
Argentina’s reward for their thrilling victory against the All Blacks in Wellington is a one-place rise in the latest World Rugby Men’s Rankings.
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Veteran hooker Agustín Creevy powered over for a late try at Sky Stadium on Saturday before Santiago Carreras wrapped up a 38-30 win with an even later penalty to give Los Pumas a dream start to The Rugby Championship.
It was only the second time Los Pumas have beaten the All Blacks on New Zealand soil and will lift them up one place to sixth in the rankings when they are updated at 12:00 BST on Monday.
Argentina gained two points for the win, meaning they are now just 1.76 points behind England in fifth ahead of Saturday’s rematch at Eden Park.
Scotland were the big losers as a result of events in Wellington as Gregor Townsend’s side slip to seventh in the rankings despite not playing.
Not only did they cede sixth place, but Scotland are now 0.83 points adrift of Los Pumas.
The All Blacks, meanwhile, remain third but the gap between them and fourth-placed France is down to 1.42 points.
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New Zealand lost two rating points in defeat, meaning they are now 4.73 points adrift of the world’s number one team, South Africa.
Scott Robertson will be confident he can pick up a first competitive win as All Blacks coach on Saturday, however, as they return to Eden Park – a ground where New Zealand have not lost since 1994.
Meanwhile, the Springboks did not pick up any points for their routine 33-7 defeat of Australia in Brisbane and therefore remain 0.99 points ahead of second-placed Ireland.
Has Razor shot himself in the foot with his "bold" team selections that ignored form and results from the Rugby Pacific Competition which the Auckland based Blues won comfortably in the final over the Waikato Chiefs, also considering his current squad has 10 players from the Crusaders, a team that didn't even make the top 8...of 12!! Razor infamously omitted standout No.8 Hoskins Sotutu who was named Player of the Tournament with a total of 12 tries, equal top for the competition, and 10 try assists. In stead Razor opted to be cleaver and go for a "bolter" in Satiti who had a single good game against the Hurricanes. Sotutu would have been an obvious pick for Eden Park, with Ardie moving to 7 and Dalton to 6, even if that was off the bench later in the game. The other huge misstep by Razor was dropping experienced Finlay Christie, incumbent from 2023 behind Aaron Smith, and picking rookie Noah Hotham to join another new cap Cortez Ratima. With T.J Perenara having a shocker and showing his age and lack of speed in decision making and passing, Razor could have easily started Finlay Christie this weekend, but now has to either persist with T.J or go with rookie Cortez.
Auckland fan perchance???….
Can’t wait for Argentina to overtake England in the World Rankings.
Jeez, can there be a bigger insult to the Wallabies than describing what happened at their fortress as a "routine 33-7 defeat"? I reckon Joe Schmidt should stick that up on the dressing room wall in Perth to light a bit of fire.
There's more SA escapees living in Perth than anywhere else. It will be another home game for them. Just another nail in the Aussie rugby coffin. Pity some of those migrants didn't support the country that took them in?