Even after 12 years, time in which the Pumas have beaten the All Blacks three times, the New Zealand public can’t get excited about Argentina being in the Rugby Championship.
After joining the Rugby Championship in 2012, it was initially a hard slog for the Pumas to win games, and even harder for them to win respect.
Partly that’s because New Zealand’s fan base is notoriously hard to impress, and every visiting team in history, even the few who have won tests or even a Series, have felt they never quite had the full respect of their hosts.
But partly it was also because Argentina didn’t consistently produce the sort of rugby required to convince New Zealanders that they were a worthy addition to the Rugby Championship.
For the first eight years of the Rugby Championship, the Pumas only once came close to beating the All Blacks. That was in 2019, when the All Blacks fielded an experimental team in World Cup year and were wobbling a bit before they sneaked home 20-16.
The rest of the games were typically one-sided, while the Pumas were often guilty of playing a grim, conservative brand of rugby where they would advance by inches.
It all changed in 2020, when the Rugby Championship – played without South Africa who decided not to travel due to concerns around Covid – was hosted by Australia, in mid-November.
On neutral territory, and with the sun on their backs, the Pumas produced the best performance in their history to defy the fact their players had been in a hard lockdown for months and beat the All Blacks 24-15.
It was an epic performance, and they followed it up two years later when they found themselves in Christchurch confronting an All Blacks team that made the mistake of not respecting them enough.
Australia’s record is singularly unimpressive and yet in the minds of the Kiwi public, the Wallabies remain a treasured and valued opponent, while the Pumas continue to be seen as second-rate, unworthy, or simply not in the same class.
The Pumas bagged their second win that night, and of course, they have now collected a third win after beating the All Blacks 38-30 in Wellington. They have produced a recent record against New Zealand that is far more impressive than that which the Wallabies have amassed.
Australia have not won a test in New Zealand since 2001 and have only won Rugby Championship fixtures against the All Blacks in World Cup years. The Wallabies grand total of Rugby Championship wins against the All Blacks is in fact just two – with a draw in Sydney 2014.
Australia’s record is singularly unimpressive and yet in the minds of the Kiwi public, the Wallabies remain a treasured and valued opponent, while the Pumas continue to be seen as second-rate, unworthy, or simply not in the same class.
This was confirmed by the 8,000 empty seats in Wellington and another 6,000 empty seats the following week in Auckland.
Welcome back Will Jordan!#AllBlacks #NZLvARG pic.twitter.com/qQ0cK07RMC
— All Blacks (@AllBlacks) August 17, 2024
It’s a strange set of affairs that Argentina have proven their worth in the Rugby Championship and have delivered better results against the All Blacks than Australia, and yet they remain unloved and, as it also appears, unwanted.
When next they will be in New Zealand is hard to know as Southern Hemisphere rugby is potentially going to be dramatically reconfigured between 2026 and 2030 (possibly for longer) and the future of the Rugby Championship in its current guise is precarious to say the least.
New Zealand (and Australia) are about to begin negotiating new broadcast contracts and in a quest to boost income and to make the landscape more fan centric, the former is winding back the clock and returning to the age of the old-fashioned multi-game tour.
When you think about not only the fantastic rivalry between the All Blacks and Springboks but the wider connection around midweek games and the ability to get right around the country, that’s something that brings the country, here and in South Africa, alive.
Mark Robinson, All Blacks Chief Executive
New Zealand and South Africa have agreed that every fourth year they will host reciprocal tours, with the All Blacks set to go to the Republic in 2026 for what will be either a three or four-test series with a handful of midweek matches.
The Boks will come to New Zealand in 2030 and take on a similar itinerary – a year after the British and Irish tour of 2029.
This return to a forgotten age will, so most independent experts believe, generate significant broadcast value. Nostalgia is big business and the rivalry between the All Blacks and Springboks was built on elongated tours that would go on for months.
As NZR chief executive Mark Robinson told the NZ Herald: “When you think about not only the fantastic rivalry between the All Blacks and Springboks but the wider connection around midweek games and the ability to get right around the country, that’s something that brings the country, here and in South Africa, alive. A lot of thought goes into that.
“One-off matches are great but if you can bring an extended period of real excitement, right across the country, they’re moments rugby wants to be involved in. We talk a lot about how we can inspire and unify the country, well, I don’t think you get better moments than those sorts of opportunities to do that.”
But this bi-lateral agreement between New Zealand and South Africa comes at a cost to their two other Sanzaar partners – Australia and Argentina – because in 2026 and 2030, there will be no Rugby Championship.
There won’t be a window for it and the Pumas and Wallabies are in danger of being left high and dry – effectively left without a meaningful test programme every fourth year.
And with the Rugby Championship typically truncated to just one round in World Cup years – (although the later start to the 2027 tournament in Australia may enable it to be played in full) – Argentina and Australia are facing genuine challenges to piece together the test programmes they will need to compete effectively in the proposed Nations Championship that is likely to begin in July 2026.
The Pumas and Wallabies will each host three different Six Nations sides in July 2026, and then play the other three in the North in November.
But how they fill in their time between these two blocs is currently unknown, although Robinson has said discussion remain ongoing in search of a solution.
If the Rugby Championship is not played in 2026 or 2030, what value will it deliver to fans and by extension, broadcasters?
“It [the proposed touring schedule] potentially has some impact around the nature of what a traditional Rugby Championship looks like, so how do we work through with all the partners involved to make sure something like that can be additive for all the teams across the Sanzaar joint venture?
“It’s definitely something that’s on the radar. There’s a bit more work to do at this stage.”
It is believed these discussions are focused on working out whether to persevere with the Rugby Championship at all.
If the Rugby Championship is not played in 2026 or 2030, what value will it deliver to fans and by extension, broadcasters?
And that is a huge question for New Zealand to answer because they need the next five years to provide the All Blacks with a meaningful and robust high-performance schedule, but one that also delivers improved commercial returns from broadcast and sponsorship income.
Inbound and outbound tours with the Springboks will be high value properties for which broadcasters around the world will likely be willing to pay a premium, but New Zealand is selling its rights for the next five years and a watered-down Rugby Championship may not be something that TV executives are willing to stick a lot of money into, and hence the overall package may not deliver the desired financial lift.
The alternative to playing the Rugby Championship would be to double down on the touring concept and commit to it entirely – build long-tour itineraries every year that include Argentina and Australia, and Japan, Fiji and the Pacific Islands.
The issue with this would be determining its broadcast appeal because the Australian TV market may not be excited by a programme that does not annually feature the All Blacks.
The Australians say that the Bledisloe is their biggest rugby event outside of the World Cup and Lions tours and a commercial winner for them that they can’t afford to see reduced in importance or regularity.
In 2026 and 2030 there will be limited available weekends to fit in the Bledisloe if NZR remains committed, which it likely will, to playing an offshore test in Japan, USA or other venues en route to playing in the Nations Championship.
But in 2026 and 2030 there will be limited available weekends to fit in the Bledisloe if NZR remains committed, which it likely will, to playing an offshore test in Japan, USA or other venues en route to playing in the Nations Championship.
In those years, the option may be to play an Anzac Day test, but that will come with innumerable problems around player release in the middle of Super Rugby.
The future for international rugby in the Southern Hemisphere is murky, and it does seem badly timed that the Pumas, having shown they are a credible and real threat, are being treated as if they are there to make up the numbers.
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