Emiliano Boffelli paid tribute to Michael Cheika after he masterminded an historic victory for Argentina at Twickenham.
In 2022 alone, Los Pumas have won a series against Scotland, earned a first-ever win over the All Blacks on New Zealand soil and now claimed a second-ever win over England at Twickenham.
It rounded off a remarkable weekend for Cheika, who on Friday night was leading Lebanon against Australia in the quarter-finals of the Rugby League World Cup.
Now, seven years after his last win against England at Twickenham – the last being as Australia coach to knock them out of the 2015 World Cup – Cheika had overseen another masterpiece, with Boffelli the main architect on the pitch of the 30-29 victory.
And the winger, who finished with a personal haul of 25 points, was quick to acknowledge the influence of the man in charge.
He said: “We said at half-time that we must stay close in the score, then we got two tries. Our attitude was important. The coach, everyone knows him as a coach and he has great experience. He is confident in us.
“To score 25 points at Twickenham is great! The whole team did their job.”
While Boffelli credited Cheika’s influence, the coach repaid the favour, insisting that it was the players who deserved most of the praise for the success.
He added: “The players have got a great attitude. They need to know what defence is, it’s not about a great ending it’s about getting a good field position so you are able to pounce.
“We were able to take points even though we didn’t have a lot of ball.”
It was that clinical nature that allowed Argentina to emerge victorious, scoring 30 points despite having just 37 percent possession and 27 percent territory.
Some of those came from English errors, notably Santiago Carreras’ try as he scooped up Owen Farrell’s pass out of the back to no one, and Eddie Jones admitted his side paid the price for some basic mistakes.
He said: “After half-time we were getting our game in place, we were looking fluid in attack but then we made mistakes and we were chasing our tail.
“We made silly mistakes but I like the way the team went about it. We didn’t finish well, there was that lack of cohesion.
“It’s not good enough – we realise it’s not good enough.
“Losing always hurts. It was one of those games, the lead changed a lot.
“You can’t put your finger on what went wrong. Structurally we had control of the game but we kept making fundamental mistakes and easy errors. Congratulations to Argentina, they took their chances and stuck in the game.”
