South Africa beat Argentina to retain Rugby Championship title

LONDON :South Africa's pack turned on the power in the second half to beat Argentina 29-27 at Twickenham on Saturday and win the Rugby Championship for the sixth time, ahead of New Zealand on points difference.

The All Blacks’ 28-14 bonus-point win over Australia in Perth earlier meant that South African needed a bonus-point victory to win the title with clear water, though their overwhelming points advantage meant that any win would be enough.

After an error-strewn start, however, they trailed 13-3 and 13-10 at halftime before two tries by Malcolm Marx and a second for Cobus Reinach enabled them to surge 29-13 ahead.

Late scores for the Pumas made the scoreboard close but it was South Africa's day as they won back to back titles for the first time. They and New Zealand finished on 19 points, but South Africa's points difference was plus-57 to the All Blacks' plus-eight. Australia ended on 11 points and Argentina 10.

"It's unreal, we spoke about it (lifting the trophy) the whole week. We had not won it back-to-back before. We still have a lot of improvements to make, but we are getting there," man-of-the-match Reinach said.

"We knew we would not just run out here and roll over them. It takes teams 60 or 70 minutes (to break the opposition down) and Argentina are unreal. They have a lot of dog in them, they keep fighting all game."

ARGENTINA TAKE EARLY LEAD

The match at Twickenham was officially a home game for Argentina, and what they lost in support they will gain in finance via their share of the 70,300 crowd gate receipts.

They took an early 7-0 lead via a brilliant finish by winger Bautista Delguy and though South Africa had much possession and a dominant scrum, they made a series of handling errors.

That kept them 13-3 down