George Ford kicked all the points, including three drop-goals, to help a 14-man England cast off a dismal run of form to claim a comprehensive 27-10 victory over Argentina in the teams’ Pool D World Cup opener on Saturday.
After just four wins from their last 13 matches, an England side boasting ten survivors from the 2019 final they lost to South Africa made it count when it mattered in Marseille.
When the two teams last met, in November, it was Los Pumas who laid down a marker with a 30-29 victory at Twickenham. But they have never won a consecutive Test in this fixture and were never in the running after Ford stepped up to take a scrappy game by the scruff of the neck.
MATCH CENTRE: England vs Argentina scores, stats
Ford more than made up for the fact that it was England’s first World Cup match without Owen Farrell since his international debut — all 10 matches across the 2015 and 2019 tournament featured Farrell at either fly-half, inside centre or as a replacement off the bench.
Farrell is serving a ban that will see him miss the first two matches in this World Cup for a dangerous tackle, but on this showing he will have to fight tooth-and-nail to get the No. 10 jersey back from his teammate.
Ford said drop-goals are “always part of our plan, especially when the ball is a bit greasy like tonight”.
“We went a man down early on so we had to take as many points as possible when we had field position, and we managed to do that,” he added.
“We have had a bit of a rocky build-up to this World Cup but I think in the last 10 days there has been a different feeling to the place. It is only game one and we will look to build next week.”
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In a dramatic opening ten minutes at a packed Stade Velodrome, French referee Mathieu Raynal was forced to use the television match official to help rule on two dubious tackles.
He first handed Tom Curry a yellow card in just the third minute following a clumsy clash of heads with Argentine fullback Juan Cruz Mallia, but that was eventually upgraded to red.
The red card was England’s fourth since March and the open side became the first England player to be sent off at a World Cup.
Boffelli made no mistake with the resulting penalty from 50 metres, but went wide with a second effort from even further out just minutes later.
Raynal was again in action to send Santiago Carreras to the sin bin for taking out his fly-half rival Ford, who subsequently brought the scores level with a penalty of his own with both sides down to 14 men.
Argentina looked toothless in attack, not helped by several ball-handling errors and the tenacity of Tuilagi in defence.
Ford kicked three quick-fire penalties in the second half to take England out to 24-3 as Los Pumas paid for their ill-discipline.
Rodrigo Bruni crossed for a late consolation try, converted by Boffelli, all too little, too late.
Meanwhile, Australia fullback Ben Donaldson scored 25 points to help earn a first win in six games under Eddie Jones since his return as the Wallabies beat Georgia 35-15 in their Rugby World Cup opener.
SEXTON SETS NEW MARK AS IRISH THRASH ROMANIA
Irish captain Johnny Sexton scored 24 points to make a spectacular return from injury as he became Ireland’s record World Cup points scorer in a sparkling 82-8 victory over Romania on Saturday.
Sexton scored two of Ireland’s 12 tries as the world’s top-ranked team recovered from the shock of an early Romanian score — gifted to them by him — in a match played in sweltering conditions of around 34 degrees.
On his comeback after a near six-month injury absence, Sexton’s tally took him to 102 points and surpassed his predecessor as fly-half Ronan O’Gara as Ireland’s record World Cup scorer.
The 38-year-old also became the oldest player ever to represent Ireland.
“Age is just a number. I’m delighted to be back to get to experience something like this. It’s been a long time out and I’m thankful to be back,” said Sexton, who expects to improve as the tournament goes on.
“There is a lot of stuff individually that I need to get right. Until you’re in the heat of the battle, you can train all you want but until you’re in a proper match it doesn’t test you properly.
“So I’m delighted just to get some minutes under my belt.
“We know there’s a much tougher task coming on Saturday against Tonga.”
The victory margin in Bordeaux was the largest ever for the Irish at the sport’s quadrennial showpiece, eclipsing the 64-7 humbling of Namibia in 2003.
SEVEN-TRY ITALY THRASH NAMIBIA
Italy cruised to a seven-try bonus-point 52-8 victory over Namibia in their Rugby World Cup Pool A opener in Saint-Etienne on Saturday.
Star wing Ange Capuozzo was amongst the try scorers, with Lorenzo Cannone, Paolo Garbisi, Dino Lamb, Epalahame Faiva, Manuel Zuliani and Paolo Odogwu also dotting down, while Gerswin Mouton replied for Namibia.
Fullback Tommaso Allan contributed 17 points with the boot in a faultless display.
It was a 23rd straight defeat in as many World Cup matches for the African side.
Coming away with a maximum five-point haul was crucial for Italy, with clashes against pool heavyweights France and New Zealand to come.
Kieran Crowley’s team is looking to make the knockout stages for the first time and the New Zealander said they will have to improve to stand any chance of making it to the quarter-finals.
“If you’d given me 50 points before the game I would have grabbed them, but we turned over about 22 balls and you can’t afford to do that,” Crowley said.
“But it was pretty hot out there and the boys are pretty gassed, so we’ll take it and we’ll move on.”
Namibia’s South African coach Allister Coetzee said he was “really proud of the boys” despite failing to end their wait for a first World Cup win.
“They never gave up. They hung in there,” Coetzee said.
“We struggled at stopping their lineout maul and also at scrum time. They are a good side.
“Towards the end it ballooned out a bit, but that is the difference in the conditioning when you come up against a Tier One country.”
