Scotland suffered a devastating collapse at Murrayfield as Argentina staged a record-breaking comeback to win 31-24. The hosts led 21-0 early in the second half, but a loose pass from Finn Russell sparked a sensational turnaround, with the Pumas scoring five tries in the final 24 minutes.
Russell had been instrumental in Scotland's dominant first half, creating tries for Jack Dempsey and Ewan Ashman (two). However, an extravagant attempted pass after the break was seized upon by Argentina, leading to a sin-bin for Blair Kinghorn and a try from captain Julián Montoya. The momentum shifted irrevocably as Rodrigo Isgró, Pedro Rubiolo, Pablo Matera, and Justo Piccardo crossed the line, with Santi Carreras orchestrating the attack and converting the decisive score.
Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend acknowledged the error's impact: 'It's such a huge momentum swing. Sometimes you make an error and nothing happens… But for it to flip the field and us to lose a yellow card, it was obviously very costly.' Argentina coach Felipe Contepomi praised his side's resilience: 'We said this was going to go for 80 minutes. We felt when we had the ball with long sequences we could hurt them.'
Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu called for introspection: 'As players we need to take a good hard look at ourselves. That performance just was not good enough.' Argentina, who thrashed Wales last weekend, now face England at Twickenham on Sunday.
