BEN Youngs spared England's blushes as it came from six points behind to beat Argentina 13-9 in its opening pool B match at the Otago Stadium in Dunedin last night.
England was trailing 9-3 when, after winger Chris Ashton was illegally upended, it kicked a penalty to touch. It won possession from the resulting lineout and replacement scrum-half Youngs, recently sidelined with a knee injury, went over for the only try of the match 13 minutes from time.
Jonny Wilkinson, who remarkably missed five of his eight goal kicks, added the conversion to make it 10-9 before landing a late penalty to extend his side's lead.
Ben Youngs scores the winning try. Photo: Reuters
But there was still time for a last-gasp Pumas attack from their own line, launched by replacement back Marcelo Bosch. A brilliant handling move ended with replacement Juan Jose Imhoff kicking ahead only to be seemingly tackled late by Manu Tuilagi. But referee Bryce Lawrence did not award a penalty and England hung on.
''I aged about 20 years,'' said England manager Martin Johnson, the 2003 World Cup-winning captain. ''We had to find a way to win and we did. It's not a fantastic performance by any means, but it's a fantastic win. I always thought if we kept on going, we'd tire them out.''
Argentina, third at the 2007 World Cup where England finished runner-up to South Africa, was made to pay for missing six out of nine penalties, a possible 18 points in total.
The Pumas, their forwards especially, performed brilliantly for a side that had played just one Test in 11 months - a 28-13 defeat by Wales in Cardiff in August. England captain Mike Tindall said: ''We are under no illusions about what Argentina can bring. You've got to give full credit to the Pumas, when they got the ball they controlled it.
''Youngsy came on and changed the tempo and we got a bit more control of the game. Luckily, their kickers couldn't kick today.''
Argentina led 6-3 at half-time and that advantage would have been greater had not captain Felipe Contepomi and full-back Martin Rodriguez, who took over kicking duties when the five-eighth sustained a blow to his ribs that forced him off midway through the first period, been off-target. Contepomi rued the Pumas' failure to turn possession into points. ''In terms of the result, it can cost us dear. It's always easier if you start by winning your first game in a World Cup.''
Argentina's next game is against Romania on Saturday while England's next match is against Georgia.
?The tournament has been given a shot in the arm by the early performances of the so-called minnows. Tonga got it going by man-handling the All Blacks pack for a 15-minute period in the second half of Friday's opening match at Auckland's Eden Park. Then Romania, Namibia and Japan all punched well above their weight yesterday before losing late to, respectively, Scotland, Fiji and France.
It was all enough to put a smile on the faces of rugby's officials who have been panned in the past for allowing the smaller nations into their showpiece event only for them to be torn apart.
Yesterday, Japan badly rattled fourth-ranked France before losing 47-21 and Namibia held its own against Fiji before going down 49-25. Japan got to within four points of France at about the 60-minute mark and came close to scoring a go-ahead try. It now remains to be seen if the trend for more competitive games will continue today with the US taking on Ireland, then Georgia and World Cup debutant Russia make their starts to the tournament this week.
AFP
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