Wales led 10-0 early doors and then edged their noses back in front in the second half with a superb solo try from Tomos Williams that made in 17-12. But it wasn’t to be in the end, and Morgan’s men will be heading home after the weekend.
“We knew they were going to be a physical team, they always are. We just had to front-up against that, but discipline and a couple of errors let us down – it’s a devastating result,” said Morgan.
“We let them into our half, and they capitalised on that. We let them have more possession and they got points out of it. I’m disappointed with the result but full credit to Argentina, they took their opportunities well.
“They’re always a physical team with a lot of X-factor players.”
The game saw Dan Biggar bow out of international rugby after 112 caps for his country. His 12 points in the game took his record tally for the World Cup up to 123. Head coach Warren Gatland was quick to praise his 15-year career in a Welsh shirt.
“He’s been a great servant for Welsh rugby. He has had some incredible high, and some lows as well. I remember him as a youngster coming in and the way he has matured and developed as a player has been pretty special,” said Gatland.
“He’s made the decision to finish international rugby, and we are probably not going to have Gareth Anscombe available either. We’ve got young Sam Costelow though, and we think he’ll be pretty special going forward because there’s lot of growth in his game.
“But Dan has been incredible, he really wants to win, he wears his heart on his sleeve and that is one of the big accolades that he has brought to this team over the years.”
Speaking about the game, Gatland summed up the disappointment felt by the players and the back room staff after an otherwise faultless campaign.
“Obviously, we’re incredibly disappointed, but I don’t want to take anything away from Argentina in terms of their performance. They were a tough team to put away and they hung in there with the fight and kept going – it was an incredibly physical test match which really could have gone any way,” said Gatland.
“They deserve a lot of credit for the way that they played today. For us, we weren’t quite at our best, but we had opportunities to win the game.
“It probably didn’t help with the referee getting injured, that was a little bit disruptive. We were 10-0 up and we gave away a couple of soft penalties.
“We spoke about how important discipline was and not giving them anything. That allowed them to stay in the game in terms of keeping the scoreboard ticking over and they took their opportunities – that’s just the way test match rugby goes sometimes.”
