So the excitement of the Autumn Series of Rugby internationals starts at Twickenham for England on the weekend as they play host to Argentina. Head Coach Eddie Jones has given a rest to Owen Farrell and Maro Itoje for the match. There was a suggestion from him that he was going to rest some of the players from the British and Irish Lions Tour but he has thrown in some of them like Mako Vunipola and Elliot Daly into the mix.
Henry Slade after his performance on the tour of Argentina earlier this year has seen in him in ahead of Alex Lozowski at 12. Whichever way you look at it, there is going to be a strong England side out on Saturday and Dylan Hartley will again captain the side. While this, of course, is not the toughest match that England are going to be playing this year, it is a good opener for them and they can warm up for their big clash against Australia the following weekend, before finishing off their Autumn action against Samoa.
This is all building towards the Six Nations early next year of course. England won the 2017 Six Nations, despite losing their final match against Ireland. That loss is their only one of 2017 and they have suffered only the one defeat in their last twenty one internationals now. So they will be heavy favourites for this one of course and beat Argentina twice in the summer. Overall these two nations have come into contact 22 times before and England have won seventeen and drawn one of those.
Argentina’s last success over England was in June 2009 and have lost their subsequent eight games against them. Eddie Jones had a great look at the depth that is available to him as a second string England went out to Tour Argentina and they beat the Pumas in both Tests, the first one a 34-4 win and then finishing with a 25-10 victory over the South Americans. There doesn’t look to be much danger of England not winning this one and so it’s to the handicap market where an England -20 at bet365 is a price of 10/11.
Argentina once again failed to make an impact in the Rugby Championship this year as they lost all six of their matches and took a defensive hammering. The Pumas have completed nine matches this year so they have been busy and they have been busy losing in most of them. They have lost all of those fixtures this year and their only triumph was a victory against Georgia. Each of their last six defeats have been by a margin of seventeen points or bigger. The Pumas are 8/1 price at bet36 to pull off an almighty shock in this one.
