Australia coach Ewen McKenzie believes his side will need to match Argentina’s passion if they are to have any chance of winning in Rosario.
The Wallabies’ beat the Pumas 14-13 last month in Perth, but were lucky to seal just their second win of what has been a shocking year, having also lost the series with the British & Irish Lions.
In contrast, despite not winning a Rugby Championship game since first taking part last year, Argentina are a team on the up and the clash at the Estadio Gigante de Arroyito looks as if it could well be their best chance of breaking their duck.
The South Americans are well known for their scrummaging power and will fancy themselves to dominate in an area where the Aussies have traditionally struggled.
The Wallabies in contrast will be praying for an open and exciting affair, in the hope that an end-to-end encounter will help them prove some of their critics wrong and see them end the Rugby Championship on a positive note.
This will be a lot easier said than done in front of the usually vociferous Rosario crowd though and coach McKenzie has warned his players that they must be just as motivated as the Argentineans, otherwise they could well suffer an embarrassing defeat.
“You’ve got to be fired up and passionate but you’ve got to be cool under pressure and our job’s to go out here and create pressure and see how they handle that side of it,” McKenzie said. “Sometimes those things can be a bit of a distraction so we’ll go out there steely-minded and quite purposeful about what we need to do.”
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