Scott Robertson will be eager to get his first international trophy under his belt with the former Crusaders coach an absolute serial trophy winner at Super Rugby level. His All Black outfit open their TRC campaign against Argentina in Wellington. Darry Worthington previews.
2024 Rugby Championship – Round 1
New Zealand v Argentina
Saturday 10 August 2024 – 09:05
Wellington Regional Stadium, Wellington
Argentina face a tough start to their Rugby Championship campaign when they head to the Wellington Regional Stadium on the North Island to face Scott Robertsons All Blacks.
To Win Match
New Zealand 1/12 | Draw 33/1 | Argentina 13/2
Handicap
New Zealand (-13.5) 9/10 | Argentina (+13.5) 9/10
The man in the All Black’s hot seat will be looking to start his Rugby Championship tenure off on a high note when his side play host to Felipe Contepomi’s Argentina, with the former Los Pumas legend having a massive rebuild on his hands as was evident by the South American outfit’s showing against a third-string French side during the mid-year internationals.
Roberston has just overseen a decent enough showing from his side against the English with the Kiwis winning their two-match series 2-0. While he and his coaching staff will have been happy to have two wins in the bag, the victories were far from convincing with the first Test ending 16-15 and the second 24-17. They then took on the Fijians in the United States and put in a solid defensive shift, running out 45-7 victors.
While New Zealand weren’t that convincing during their mid-year fixtures, Argentina were poor, drawing their series against an almost third-string France 1-1 with the French winning the first Test 13-28, while Argentina bounced back in the second running out 33-25. They then took on a Uruguayan side – missing a number of stars due to 7s Olympic duty – and took them to task winning the fixture 5-79.
Both teams are missing a couple players for this one with Scott Barrett suffering an injury against Fiji while Stephen Perofeta is struggling with a niggly injury meaning his Blues teammate Harry Plummer has been called up as injury cover. There’s also a recall for Will Jordan who has just overcome a long-term injury that kept him out of the entire Super Rugby Pacific campaign.
On the Argentine side of things, Lucio Cinti, Agustín Creevy, Juan Martín González, Tomás Lavanini, Juan Cruz Mallía and Joel Sclavi have all returned to the squad having missed out on the July Internationals while Jerónimo de la Fuente misses out due to personal reasons.
Looking at the last five head-to-head results between the sides, there’s only one anomaly with New Zealand winning four of the five fixtures by 13 points or more. Argentina’s only taste of success being their famous 18-25 win in Christchurch back in 2022.
Verdict: New Zealand (- 13.5) 9/10
I reckon the Kiwis will finally cut loose here. The return of Will Jordan is a massive coup and he’ll bring an exciting dynamic to the All Blacks counter-attack coming off the bench.
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