{"id":190130,"date":"2025-10-04T19:27:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T19:27:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/190130\/"},"modified":"2025-10-04T19:27:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-04T19:27:11","slug":"stella-scrummaging-edges-south-africa-past-argentina-in-rugby-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/190130\/","title":{"rendered":"Stella Scrummaging Edges South Africa past Argentina in Rugby Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa are the 2025 Rugby Championship champions. The Springboks won the title with a 29-27 victory against Argentina on Saturday in London, UK. The match brought the competition to a close for 2025. It remains to be seen when the competition will next be played<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Stella scrummaging from South Africa was the difference in the match. The Springboks won a staggering seven penalties from scrums during the contest. That said, South Africa\u2019s victory did not come without controversy. Center Canan Moodie was yellow carded for head-on-head contact in attempting a tackle. After returning he knocked-on an Argentine pass with men over. He was very fortunate not to be yellow carded, and thus red carded.<\/p>\n

Los Pumas were the protagonists early-on. Good ball had Marcos Kremer deep inside the opposition 22 down the left. Recycled play went right with Bautista Delguy slicing between two defenders to score. Santiago Carreras converted from wide.<\/p>\n

South Africa responded with fly half Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu opening their account with a penalty. Santiago Carreras canceled it out and added another for a 13-3 lead on 27 minutes.<\/p>\n

The Springboks were not finding their rhythm but their superiority of the scrum gave them opportunities. Their first try was an example with scrum-half Cobus Reinach scoring on 38 minutes from a rampaging scrum.<\/p>\n

On the other side of half-time, the scrum again led to Springboks\u2019 points. With field position won the world \u2018s no 1 team were hot on attack and Argentina lost Mayco Vivas to a yellow card; it was his second of the Rugby Championship. Malcolm Marx then capitalized by scoring the first of his two second-half tries from a lineout to maul move.<\/p>\n

The scrum was the weapon again for the third South African try. With the penalty won, the Springboks attacked deep in the Pumas 22 again. Wave after wave culminated with Reinach scoring his second try. It came with a pass from the floor from replacement RG Snyman.<\/p>\n

Marx then scored South Africa\u2019s fourth, and final try. It was again following a scrum penalty which South Africa kicked for the corner. Replacement Puma Juan Mart\u00edn Gonz\u00e1lez won the lineoiut against the throw by Sim\u00f3n Ben\u00edtez Cruz was unable to secure the ball. Marx picked-up and darted forward. He was stopped short but quick ball had him over three phases later.<\/p>\n

South Africa were 29-13 ahead and had a bonus point win. However, Argentina fought back to score twice in the final quarter. The first saw a poor pass from Cheslin Kolbe snatched by Bautista Delguy who ran 35 meters to score. It was not isolated as a grave error from Kolbe also provided Argentina a try seven days earlier in Durban.<\/p>\n

The second Pumas late try came with time up. It interestingly occurred after Santiago Carreras missed a penalty. South Africa recovered only to concede a penalty for holding on. Argentina then kicked for the corner and went for a lineout to maul move. South Africa defended well and Santiago Carreras put in a cross-kick for Rodrigo Isgr\u00f3 in the right corner.<\/p>\n

The final whistle saw South Africa celebrating back-to-back Rugby Championship titles for the first-time in history. Los Pumas\u2019 narrow loss, meanwhile, sees attention quickly turning to November. Argentina will be in a war to retain their ranking so as to receive the most favorable possible draw for Rugby World Cup 2027<\/a>. Felipe Contepomi\u2019s team face Scotland, Wales and England in Edinburgh, Cardiff and London.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Juli\u00e1n Montoya became the most capped Pumas captain in history. He first led Argentina in 2021 against Romania<\/a>. His 52 test as captain are followed by Agust\u00edn Creevy with 51, Lisandro Arbizu with 48, Hugo Porta with 38 and Agust\u00edn Pichot with 31.
\nSacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu passed the mark of 100 test match points for South Africa.
\nSantiago Carreras scored 12 points to finish the 2025 Rugby Championship as Top Scorer with 72.
\nTom\u00e1s Rapetti made his debut for Argentina, doing so at the age of 20.<\/p>\n

\"\"Foto: Prensa UAR<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Both teams carried 408 meters. Argentina did so from 128 carries and South Africa from 118.
\nArgentina had 52% Possession.
\nBautista Delguy had most meters made with 114.
\nMarcos Kremer was the top tackler with 17. Pedro Rubiolo and Juli\u00e1n montoya were next with 14 each.
\nMalcolm Marx was the top turn-over winner with 2 steals.
\n8 of the 14 penalties conceded by Argentina were by props.<\/p>\n

\"\"
ARGENTINA (27)
TRY \u2013 B Delguy 2 (4\u2032, 66\u2032), R Isgr\u00f3 (80\u2032)
CON \u2013 S Carreras (5\u2032, 66\u2032, 80\u2032)
PEN \u2013 S Carreras (18\u2032, 27\u2032)
YC \u2013 M Vivas (43\u2032)<\/p>\n

\"\"
SOUTH AFRICA (29)
TRY \u2013 C Reinach 2 (38\u2032, 52\u2032), M Marx 2 (44\u2032, 58\u2032)
CON \u2013 S Feinberg-Mngomezulu (53\u2032, 39\u2032, 59\u2032)
PEN \u2013 S Feinberg-Mngomezulu (10\u2032)
YC \u2013 C Moodie (1\u2032)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"
ARGENTINA
1 Mayco Vivas, 2 Juli\u00e1n Montoya (capt.), 3 Joel Sclavi, 4 Guido Petti, 5 Pedro Rubiolo, 6 Pablo Matera, 7 Marcos Kremer, 8 Santiago Grondona, 9 Sim\u00f3n Ben\u00edtez Cruz, 10 Ger\u00f3nimo Prisciantelli, 11 Juan Cruz Mall\u00eda, 12 Santiago Chocobares, 13 Justo Piccardo, 14 Bautista Delguy, 15 Santiago Carreras<\/p>\n

Replacements: 16 Ignacio Ruiz, 17 Boris Wenger, 18 Francisco Coria Marchetti, 19 Franco Molina, 20 Juan Mart\u00edn Gonzalez, 21 Joaqu\u00edn Oviedo, 22 Agust\u00edn Moyano, 23 Rodrigo Isgr\u00f3<\/p>\n

\"\"
SOUTH AFRICA
1 Ox Nche, 2 Malcolm Marx, 3 Thomas du Toit, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 5 Ruan Nortje, 6 Siya Kolisi (capt.), 7 Pieter-Steph du Toit, 8 Jasper Wiese, 9 Cobus Reinach, 10 Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu, 11 Ethan Hooker, 12 Damian de Allende, 13 Canan Moodie, 14 Cheslin Kolbe, 15 Damian Willemse<\/p>\n

Replacements: 16 Bongi Mbonambi, 17 Jan-Hendrik Wessels, 18 Wilco Louw, 19 RG Snyman, 20 Kwagga Smith, 21 Grant Williams, 22 Manie Libbok, 23 Jesse Kriel<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Referee: Andrea Piardi (Italy)
Assistant Referees: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia), Eoghan Cross (Ireland)
Television Match Official: Ian Tempest (England)
Split Screen\/FPRO: Matteo Liperini (Italy)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Africa are the 2025 Rugby Championship champions. The Springboks won the title with a 29-27 victory against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190131,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":["post-190130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}