Rugby World Cup 2019: England beat Argentina, qualify for quarter-finals

  • 05/10/2019

England secured their place in the World Cup quarter-finals with a crushing 39-10 victory against the 14 men of Argentina in Tokyo on Saturday.

The Pumas were forced to play for 63 minutes a man down after lock Tomas Lavanini was sent off for smashing his shoulder into Owen Farrell's head.

England were 5-3 up at the time after a Jonny May try, and though the Pumas battled valiantly for a while, they were eventually overwhelmed.

Elliot Daly, Ben Youngs, George Ford, Jack Nowell and Luke Cowan-Dickie also scored tries for England. 

The victory earns England, who were eliminated from the pool phase when they hosted the tournament four years ago, a quarter-final.

Coach Eddie Jones will be delighted with what was a dominant display. 

Though the red card swung the momentum hugely in their favour, they showed a growing combination of power and pace that has made them real contenders to lift the trophy.

Argentina need France to slip up twice to have any chance of going through. 

Saturday's defeat was their 10th in a row against England, and they have lost 29 of their last 34 games. 

After Argentina opened the scoring, England regrouped and got on the scoreboard in the ninth minute after an impressive rolling maul took them into the danger zone and May sprinted over.

Argentina's hopes were dealt a fatal blow after 17 minutes when Lavanini became the latest player to fall foul of the game's new high tackle directive.

The incident was missed by referee Nigel Owens, but he had no real option once he entered into discussion with the TMO.

The Pumas might have then felt a little hard done by when Manu Tuilagi was lucky not to be yellow-carded for tackling Emiliano Boffelli in the air.

The pressure eventually paid off after 36 minutes when England's forwards were camped on the line for numerous phases before Ford spun the ball wide left for Daly to catch, juggle, then scuttle over.

The forwards repeated the trick after the first-half gong had sounded, creating space for Youngs to dart through.

Up 15-3 at halftime, England secured a bonus point five minutes into the second half when powerful charges by Sam Underhill, Tuilagi and Lewis Ludlam made space for Ford to cross.

England 39 (Luke Cowan-Dickie, Elliot Daly, George Ford, Jonny May, Jack Nowell, Ben Youngs tries Owen Farrell 3 cons pen) 

Argentina 10 (Matias Moroni try Emiliano Boffelli con Benjamin Urdapilleta pen)

Join us at 5:45pm Sunday for live updates of the All Blacks v Namibia Rugby World Cup clash.

Reuters