The Argentina vs Scotland 2018 fixture will go down in history. Officially it was the final match of the Daniel Hourcade regime. The match itself was the third of three home matches for Argentina in June. The return was 0-3 with Wales and Scotland both impressing.
Against Scotland in Resistencia Argentina had a nightmare start to the match. So poorly structured was the defense that Scotland scored three tries in the opening 14 minutes of play. The embarrassment did not end there as Scotland would hold an unthinkable 33 point lead at half time.
The match itself underlined the mood of the players who were clearly not functioning under Hourcade any longer. The same players were a winning side in Super Rugby with Mario Ledesma playing an entirely different brand of rugby.
Hourcade’s sideways style of rugby had been abandoned by Ledesma who had Los Jaguares attacking straight ahead. The result of forwards moving upfield rather than recovering for breakdown battles was a simple comparison of the two models.Different selections between the two coaches was a part of this model too.
It could not get much worse for Argentina than their troubled home series in June 2018. The final match went down as the worst, to erase any doubts as to whether a coaching change was required 14 months before RWC 2019.
For a complete match report click here.