Rugby Championship Preview – Saturday, July 27th 2019 at 10:45 am
The situation in this one is that the loser of this will likely end up with the wooden spoon in this season’s Rugby Championship. That’s because both of them lost their opening games last weekend and this is a shortened tournament with teams playing each other just once. Who will come out on tip in Brisbane?
Australia v Argentina Odds*
Australia 2/5
Argentina 2/1
Draw 25/1
* (betting odds taken from bet365 on July 22nd, 2019 at 1.00 pm)
Can Australia win on home soil?
The Wallabies had their struggles last season in the Rugby Championship and they continued in the opening round of 2019 action. Australia had one of the driest years in their history during 2018 in terms of wins. They just weren’t at the races and in their opening game of this year’s Rugby Championship, they suffered a thumping 35-17 defeat in South Africa. They could find no answer in defence and always looked as if they were going to be cracked, the longer the game dragged on.
As positives though, they weren’t too bad in the tackle and in beating defenders. They carried slightly more metres than the Boks did. But there were telling things like the number of turnovers that they gave up. It is a new year for the Wallabies, but there is no easy game in this Championship to try and raise their spirits ahead of the World Cup.
Head to head
Interestingly last year the Wallabies were beaten by Argentina. Australia suffered a 23-19 loss against the Pumas on the Gold Coast, before getting some revenge with an away win over them later in the Championships.
Australia have won 12 of the last 15 meetings between the two nations. How much will that home defeat against the Pumas last year be playing on their mind in this one?
Can Argentina beat the Wallabies again
Argentina will have left the pitch in their opening game against New Zealand disappointed but proud. They were fantastic and gave the All Blacks a good scrap. In a gutsy and have performance, the Pumas fell short in a 16-20 defeat. However, they played so well in the second half of that fixture, having the World Champions under all sorts of pressure and Argentina didn’t concede a single point after the half time break.
So if they turn up with another performance like that, they can rattle the Wallabies again. The last time the Rugby Championship was shortened because of a World Cup year was back in 2015. Argentina took a third-place finish in that table. Last year’s campaign saw them create a bit of history for themselves. After having beaten South Africa and then Australia in the 2018 Rugby Championship, for the first time they had won two games in a single campaign.
Predictions
You have to admire the way that Argentina played against New Zealand in Buenos Aires last weekend. They were a little unlucky to come up empty-handed. They won’t be fearing the Australians after winning on the Gold Coast last year. If this was being played in Argentina then we’d probably look at the upset. However, Australia did do some positive work in their defeat against the South Africans. This could be tight but an Argentina +8 at 5/6 odds looks a decent proposition* (betting odds taken from bet365 on July 22nd, 2019 at 1.00 pm).
