{"id":816418,"date":"2026-07-22T11:28:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T11:28:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/816418\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T11:28:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T11:28:09","slug":"england-greats-slam-disgraceful-argentina-as-world-rugby-urged-to-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/816418\/","title":{"rendered":"England greats slam ‘disgraceful’ Argentina as World Rugby urged to act"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former England<\/a> duo Ben Youngs and Anthony Watson have urged World Rugby to come down hard on Argentina following Saturday\u2019s Nations Championship clash.<\/p>\n

Steve Borthwick\u2019s men claimed a 31-24 victory over Los Pumas in a game full of controversy before it ended in ignominy.<\/p>\n

The Argentinians<\/a> have been widely criticised for their vehement protestations over a last-minute try which was not awarded.<\/p>\n

Fly-half Tomas Albornoz even appeared to make physical contact with referee Angus Gardner as he complained about the decision, while an object was thrown from the stands when the officials were exiting the field.<\/p>\n

There was also some nastiness after that as head coach Felipe Contepomi accused England<\/a> of a \u201clack of respect\u201d, storming out of the press conference due to their music being played too loudly.<\/p>\n

That was where Youngs started his epic rant, claiming that Argentina\u2019s approach and attitude ultimately stems from the person at the top.<\/p>\n

\u2018Disgraceful, unforgivable behaviour<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen Rassie be banned, we\u2019ve seen Eddie Jones be banned, we\u2019ve seen Steve Diamond in the PREM, we\u2019ve seen Richard Cockerill in the PREM and for me it starts from the head guy and the way he behaves,\u201d he said on the For The Love of Rugby<\/a> podcast.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou saw Contepomi after the game, basically his post-match press conference, he\u2019s asked England to turn down the music and the singing, and they haven\u2019t, so he basically storms out.<\/p>\n

\u201cHis behaviour at Twickenham [in November] was the same and you\u2019ve seen players at the end of the game after the TMO and the ref has made the decision to surround the ref.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s totally disgraceful, unforgivable behaviour. I hope that World Rugby take it seriously, I hope there\u2019s bans dished out, no one wants to see that in our game and the fact they think that\u2019s okay is an absolute disgrace \u2013 it\u2019s awful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Argentina lit the fuse by wearing a kit which took inspiration from their football team\u2019s 1986 World Cup campaign, that of the infamous \u2018Hand of God\u2019 goal, before a number of scuffles broke out during the match.<\/p>\n

The first came after the opening try following an apparent cheap shot from Mateo Carreras on Tommy Freeman, who was also on the receiving end of a possible punch by that man Albornoz.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought the antics throughout the game were dreadful. Freemo scores, Albornoz runs across and chins him. Whether it was intentional or not, either way he strikes a player in the face,\u201d Youngs added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was constant throughout the game, I thought Argentina\u2019s antics were absolutely awful and I hope World Rugby makes an example of this game because you can\u2019t ever see that behaviour again, I thought it was absolutely shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brian Moore warns World Rugby will be \u2018abrogating its responsibilities\u2019 if they \u2018make light\u2019 of serious accusations against Argentina<\/a><\/p>\n

Anthony Watson\u2019s view<\/p>\n

Watson then added his two cents worth, insisting that he was fine with the two teams coming to blows on the field, but agreed with Youngs over their attitude after the final whistle had blown.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet me play devil\u2019s advocate for a bit. The antics on the pitch towards players and the little niggle, I actually don\u2019t mind,\u201d the former back three star said.<\/p>\n

\u201cArgentina are playing England in Argentina and obviously we can talk about the context before \u2013 the [football] World Cup semi-final, the Falklands \u2013 but it forced the game to have a little bit more edge than it otherwise would.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the last game of the Nations Championship, the England boys are tired and it just forced that little more edge in the game that I thought was a good thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrama in sport is huge but where the line is drawn in my opinion is post-game, one to the referee and two, to the media, that is completely unacceptable.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngus Gardner getting stuff thrown at him walking off the pitch, he\u2019s probably got a family at home and this, that and the other, and he\u2019s there to do a job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t land on him luckily but to even put the potential out there to physically harm someone, it\u2019s absolutely way too far for someone who\u2019s just trying to do their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

There has been a debate as to whether Los Pumas should have been awarded a penalty try, but Watson insisted that the officials made the right call.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did think the attitude of the Argentinian players towards him when it was no try, and it was definitely no try \u2013 there was no debate in my opinion \u2013 it was proper childish stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cKicking the ball away, [Bautista] Delguy moving like a five or six-year-old, it was honestly pretty pathetic. I\u2019m with you, World Rugby\u2019s got to look at it and speak to them, and it does start top-down.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere I am surprised is we know [Captain] Julian [Montoya] extremely and he couldn\u2019t be further from that as a player; he\u2019s extremely respectful of decisions, refs, anyone, so I\u2019m surprised the Argentina team has got to that level.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got to do something about it, it can\u2019t happen again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Racist abuse in last year\u2019s clash<\/p>\n

This controversy came a year after England duo Asher Opoku-Fordjour and Chandler Cunningham-South were racially abused by Argentinian supporters last year.<\/p>\n

World Rugby condemned the incident, but no sanction was handed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think England should stop going there, I think World Rugby have got to get involved and try to sort out the deeper issues of what\u2019s going on with Argentina and their home games,\u201d Watson added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe racist abuse last year was kind of brushed under the rug, now that this has happened this year I think World Rugby will take a closer look at it, but I don\u2019t think we should stop going there.<\/p>\n

\u201cRugby has still got a duty to grow the game as much as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think the punishments have been severe enough for them to take action. Following this now, if they do get not just a strongly worded email from World Rugby, I think that they will have to put some things into action to prevent it from happening again. This might be the final warning.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: State of the Nation: England take \u2018big step forward\u2019 to shift \u2018growing pressure\u2019 off Steve Borthwick but discipline issues \u2018becoming an epidemic\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former England duo Ben Youngs and Anthony Watson have urged World Rugby to come down hard on Argentina…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[12910,64,63,1208,818,1182,229246,44,760,85],"class_list":["post-816418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-argentina","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-england","tag-home-page","tag-internationals","tag-nations-championship","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816418","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=816418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}