South Africa cruise past Argentina with 29-10 win

Argentina 10-29 South Africa, Nelson Mandela Stadium

Handre Pollard contributed with 21 points as South Africa maintained their perfect start in the ongoing Rugby Championship with a 29-10 win over Argentina in the second round at Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium on Saturday.

The win has taken the Springboks to the top of the table with nine points and are followed by New Zealand at second with five points.

South Africa started the proceedings with a ninth minute penalty goal from Pollard after Argentina were penalised for an offside and it doubled their tally in the 18th minute after the visitors conceded a scrum penalty and the Springboks fly-half was once again spot on with the kick.

The scoreline became 9-0 by the 23rd minute after another Argentina infringement as they were penalised for a side entry at the maul. with Pollard kicking his third three-pointer.

The response from Argentina came in the 25th minute with a penalty from Domingo Miotti after Jasper Wiese failed to release at the tackle but his effort was cancelled out with a kick from Pollard five minutes later.

Argentina were reduced to 14-men by the 32nd minute as Rodrigo Bruni was sin-binned failing to roll away from the ball after a tackle and Pollard followed with his fifth penalty kick as South Africa went into the break with a 15-3 lead.

South Africa were dominant at the start of the second half as Willie le Roux set up Makazole Mapimpi over the line for the first try in the game in the 46th minute and six minutes later Malcolm Marx also dotted down at the back of a maul. Pollard kicked both the conversions as they extended the lead to 29-3.

Despite losing Tomas Lavanini to yellow card in the added minutes, Argentina managed to score a consolation try with Pablo Matera forcing his way over while Nicolas Sanchez added the extras to reduce their losing margin to 19 points.

Team line-up:

South Africa: 15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 13 Lukhanyo Am, 12 Damian de Allende, 11 Makazole Mapimpi, 10 Handré Pollard, 9 Cobus Reinach, 8 Jasper Wiese, 7 Franco Mostert, 6 Siyamthanda Kolisi (captain), 5 Lodewyk de Jager, 4 Marvin Orie, 3 Thomas du Toit, 2 Malcolm Marx, 1 Trevor Nyakane.

Reserves: 16 Mbongeni Mbonambi, 17 Steven Kitshoff, 18 Frans Malherbe, 19 Nicolaas van Rensburg, 20 Albertus Smith, 21 Dan du Preez, 22 Jaden Hendrikse, 23 Damian Willemse.

Argentina: 15 Juan Cruz Mallía, 14 Ignacio Mendy, 13 Santiago Chocobares, 12 Jeronimo de la Fuente, 11 Santiago Carreras, 10 Domingo Miotti, 9 Gonzalo Bertranou, 8 Rodrigo Bruni, 7 Guido Petti, 6 Pablo Matera, 5 Tomas Lavanini, 4 Matias Alemanno, 3 Francisco Gomez Kodela, 2 Julian Montoya (captain), 1 Nahuel Tetaz Chaparro.

Reserves: 16 Facundo Bosch, 17 Facundo Gigena, 18 Santiago Medrano, 19 Marcos Kremer, 20 Juan Martin Gonzalez, 21 Felipe Ezcurra, 22 Nicolas Sanchez, 23 Lucio Cinti.