Flawless Ford kicks 14-man England past Argentina on magical World Cup night in Marseille

After just four wins from their last 13 matches, an England side boasting 10 survivors from the 2019 final they lost to South Africa made it count when it mattered in Marseille.

FT | England 27-10 Argentina

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.

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.

There was a dramatic opening 10 minutes at a packed Stade Velodrome, French referee Mathieu Raynal forced to use the television match official to help rule on two dubious tackles.

He first handed Curry a yellow card in just the third minute following a clumsy clash of heads with Argentine full-back Juan Cruz Mallia, but that was eventually upgraded to red.

The red card was England's fourth since March and the openside 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.

WRAP | Rugby World Cup 2023: Full weekend results

Raynal was again in action to send Santiago Carreras to the sin bin for taking out his fly-half rival Ford,