Boks secure first back-to-back Rugby Championship titles with close win over Pumas

South Africa’s Springboks retained their Rugby Championship title in a slate-grey London, but it was the definition of winning ugly.

It may have been a scrappy, error-strewn and nervy performance from the Boks, but if there is one thing this team knows how to do, it’s to win silverware.

The past six years have seen them claim three Rugby Championships (2019, 2024, 2025), two World Cups (2019, 2023) a British & Irish Lions series (2021), as well as Freedom Cups and Mandela Plates. They are serial winners.

Despite beating the committed Pumas on the day, in isolation this felt like a bit of a step backwards for the Boks after two brilliant wins in rounds four and five of the Rugby Championship.

The best way to describe matters at Twickenham was “workmanlike”. It was a case of going out to do a job without flair, which is what the Boks managed.

If the Boks had delivered a similarly weak performance in Buenos Aires instead of London, with the Pumas backed by home support, the outcome of the match and the 2025 Rugby Championship might have been different.

A win would do

Going into the game, the Boks knew that a win would do. After seeing the All Blacks beat Australia earlier in the day, while securing a bonus point.

That left New Zealand on 19 log points and the Boks on 15, but South Africa had a vastly superior points difference. Four log points was the only goal, and on that score, the Boks delivered.

Objectively, the Boks were the strongest team in the tournament, producing the best moments and the most emphatic result when they thrashed the All Blacks 43-10 in Wellington in round four. They deserved the title, although the nature of how they secured it against the Pumas, is a reminder that the difference between the top teams in the sport is not vast.

Taking control

Scrumhalf Cobus Reinach and hooker Malcolm Marx scored two tries each, while the Boks took control of the game shortly before halftime. They put the result to bed on the hour mark when Marx went in for his second try.

The Boks’ set piece dominated, especially the scrum, while they won the breakdown battle with Marx and later Kwagga Smith providing accurate and effective work on the deck.

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Having trailed 13-3, the Boks led 29-13 with 20 minutes to go. It looked to be over as a contest, but a bad mistake by wing Cheslin Kolbe, when he threw an intercept pass for wing Bautista Delguy to score, changed the momentum. After looking defeated, the Pumas had an injection of urgency with that score.

The Boks were hanging on in the last 10 minutes. When Pumas fullback Santiago Carreras (who scored 12 points on the day) lined up a 75th minute penalty, the tension mounted.

If he landed it, the Pumas would need a converted try to win and deny the Boks the Championship title. The ball hit the post and the Boks scrambled on defence, as they had for much of the first half. Crisis averted and title secured.

The Pumas did have the last say when utility back Rodrigo Isgró scored after a pinpoint cross-field kick, but it was too little, too late.

Slow work

Not for the first time this season, the Boks made a bad start to the match and had to slowly work their way into the contest.

It was a messy first-half performance as they struggled to find an answer to the Pumas’ ability to stretch play to the wings.

Argentina kept beating the Boks’ rush, forcing the world champions to scramble on defence.

The Boks are adept at this, but when outside centre Canan Moodie was yellow-carded for a high tackle in the second minute, the hole it created in the defence was telling.

In one particularly impressive play, the Pumas worked the ball through multiple phases before manipulating space for right wing Delguy to open the scoring with a well-taken try.

The Bok defence simply couldn’t plug all the holes as the Pumas recycled impressively with Moodie absent in the crucial channel.

Moodie’s indiscretion was not upgraded to red after review, but he might have been lucky to stay on the field later when he attempted to intercept and knocked the ball on.

Referee Andrea Piardi took the lenient view that it was a genuine attempt to intercept and not a deliberate knock-on. On another day, with another referee, it might have been a different outcome.

Stuck to their task

The Boks though, are always composed, and at 13-3 down after two Santiago Carreras penalties, in addition to the Delguy try, they stuck to their task.

Tactically they changed tack slightly from a week earlier, only kicking 11 times in the first half, compared to an average of 18 per half in their previous two matches.

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The Pumas won the aerial battle, which frustrated the Springboks, so they kicked more sparingly than in previous weeks. They only kicked 24 times in the game.

The problem was that they weren’t able to make as many inroads with the ball in hand as they had in previous weeks either.

Argentina were guilty of living on the edge and using any means possible to stunt South Africa’s attacks. A final penalty count of 13 to 10 was perhaps the difference in the outcome.

The Bok scrum worked powerfully, and it provided the basis for their way back into the game. A series of scrums and subsequent penalties 5m from the Pumas’ line, led to a try for Reinach, just before halftime.

Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu converted, to add to his earlier penalty, and the Boks went into the break only three points down and very much in the contest.

Marx scored from a rolling maul five minutes into the second half after prop Mayco Vivas was sin-binned for a high tackle, to put daylight between the teams.

Reinach’s second try was a lovely team score that came after five phases from a lineout close to the Pumas’ line. Those moments highlighted the best of the Boks and took them to a deserved title. DM

Scorers:

Argentina – Tries: Bautista Delguy (2), Rodrigo Isgró. Conversions: Santiago Carreras (3). Penalties: Carreras (2).

South Africa – Tries: Cobus Reinach (2), Malcolm Marx (2). Conversions: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu (3). Penalty: Sacha Feinberg-Mngomezulu.