Both teams showed a lack of composure and little quality was seen from either nation on the night. Argentina’s error strewn game eventually proved the main factor that guaranteed the Welsh success.
Wales notched up three penalties in the first half, all courtesy of the boot of Mark Ring. He scored his first after nine minutes, the second in the middle of the first half and the third came in the thirty-eighth minute, taking the score to 9-0 as the teams headed into the interval. Despite his scores, Ring missed three further attempts at goal plus a drop goal over the course of the game.
This was nothing, however, compared to the fortunes of the Argentineans. Guillermo Del Castillo squandered four penalty attempts, centre Eduardo Laborde missed two and fly-half Lisandro Arbizu fluffed two drop goal efforts. The Welsh could only profit from such calamitous play.
Del Castillo eventually found his mark in the second half and landed a penalty after 65 minutes. Wales’s most significant move of the match followed, and proved crucial to the winning of the game. Richard Webster passed to scrum half Robert Jones, who raced up the left touch line and found support in the form of Paul Arnold. Arnold, the lock forward, thundered over for Wales’s first try. Ring missed the conversion, yet the score was lifted to 13-3, edging the Welsh towards a much required victory.
Soon after, in the 72nd minute, Mike Rayer was called upon to take a penalty for Wales. He struck it confidently and advanced the Welsh lead to 16-3 with less than ten minutes remaining. The Argentinean forwards made some last dash advances and managed to add to their points haul before the close of the match. Hernan Garcia Simon, from a second phase of Argentine possession, touched down in the left corner. With the conversion going amiss, Argentina would secure no further points in this tension-filled encounter.
With the final score resting at 16-7 in favour of the home nation, Wales brought the sequence of eight successive defeats at the Arms Park to an end.
This overdue victory, secured on a rain-soaked Wednesday night, certified that Wales had to overcome the Australians in order to qualify for the latter stages of the tournament. Otherwise the only Welsh hope was that Argentina could beat Western Samoa and they could then hope to tie on points and advance on a higher try count.
Both avenues of succession were as unlikely as each other; Argentina eventually went down 35-12 to Western Samoa at Pontypridd and given that Wales had lost 63-6 on their tour to Australia in July, the odds were highly stacked against the Welshmen to overcome the Antipodeans.
