Santiago Grondona was in impressive form but it wasn’t enough to stop Argentina from slipping to a heavy defeat at the hands of South Africa, as the World Champion Springboks took the Rugby Championship title.
Grondona started on the openside flank and played a key role in Tomas Albornoz’s first-half try, breaking clear to send his fly half over, but Rassie Erasmus’ side soon hit top gear scoring four first-half tries, with Aphelele Fassi grabbing two before assisting Cheslin Kolbe.
Player of the match Pieter-Steph du Toit also claimed the first of his two tries. The turning point in the second half came when Pumas replacement Pablo Matera had a yellow card upgraded to a 20-minute red for making head contact when trying to clear out Vincent Koch.
With full-back Santiago Carreras joining Matera in the sin-bin for a deliberate knock-on, Malcolm Marx took advantage from the back of a maul.
Du Toit scored again before centre Jesse Kriel got on the end of Handre Pollard’s dinked kick to score the final try of a ruthless display..
