Nations Championship

Argentina (10) 38

Tries: Oviedo, Isgro, Rapetti, Cinti, Moyano Cons: Albornoz 5 Pens: Albornoz

Scotland (19) 47

Tries: Tuipulotu, Schoeman, Hutchinson, Brown, Cummings, Hiddleston, Rowe Cons: Burke 3, Jordan 3

Scotland opened their Nations Championship campaign with an impressive seven-try win against Argentina in Cordoba.

Scores from Pierre Schoeman, Sione Tuipulotu and Rory Hutchinson gave the visitors a 19-10 lead at the interval.

Gregor Brown and Scott Cummings touched down in a whirlwind second half, with debutant Gregor Hiddleston and Kyle Rowe also crossing the whitewash.

Two of Argentina’s five tries came in the closing moments to earn the hosts a bonus point in a wide open encounter.

Scotland visit South Africa next Saturday, with the world champions having enjoyed a 45-21 victory over England earlier in the day.

Gregor Townsend’s side were ruthless in attack, scoring with their first three visits to the 22, and the head coach will be delighted with a number of strong performances.

Hutchinson and Rowe were prominent as Scotland recovered from a slow start, during which Joaquin Oviedo sauntered through the middle of a maul to score.

On 18 minutes, Hutchinson followed some neat footwork with a great pass to find his centre partner Tuipulotu on the touchline.

The skipper touched down in the corner and Fergus Burke, on as a temporary replacement for fly-half Tom Jordan, banged over the extras.

Rowe then broke free to send prop Schoeman plunging over from close range to mark his 50th cap in style.

The Scotland centres were to the fore again when Tuipulotu ripped through the home defence like a meteor before the nimble Hutchinson finished off.

A great one-handed take, along with an undetected nudge on Rowe, allowed Rodrigo Isgro to score early in the second half.

It was a two-point game and the thoughts of nervous Scotland fans may have strayed to November’s crushing defeat at Murrayfield when a 21-0 lead was surrendered.

However, Scotland’s decision-making was solid, as was their set-piece, and a cute back-of-the-hand pass from Ewan Ashman to Ben White from a line-out culminated in replacement lock Brown crunching over.

Lock Scott Cummings was also making his 50th Scotland appearance and he too marked it with a try as a composed pass from White made the most of a three v two overload.

Tomas Rapetti burrowed over to reduce the deficit, with a bloodied Jamie Dobie shown a yellow card for some illicit grappling. Scotland were 33-24 in front but a man down.

Again, the visitors showed a clinical edge as replacement hooker Hiddleston peeled off a maul to make his first international match a memorable one.

Joaquin Moro was sent to the sin-bin in the aftermath and Argentina’s advantage in personnel was gone in a flash.

The hosts, in their first outing of 2026 and missing some key men, were further flattened when Rowe burst away to get the score the full-back’s efforts deserved.

Nine incursions into the home 22, seven tries. A wonderful return.

Lucio Cinti and Agustin Moyano reduced the deficit in the final throes, but, with the job well and truly done, Scotland may have been thinking of their next task against the mighty Springboks.

Scotland head coach Gregor Townsend told ITV: “We’re really proud of the way the players played our game.

“We took a while to get possession but once we got into our rhythm I thought we were tactically very smart. We won the games within the game and I felt our forward pack led very well.

“We know how dangerous Argentina are, defensively we had to be in a good place and generally we were.

“There were not-so-good moments at the beginning and end of the first half but our work off the ball, finishing off tries, was good.

“We’re flying overnight to South Africa, a big challenge against the number one team in the world.

“We must have done a lot of things right today, we’ll have to do better next week.”

Argentina: S Carreras; Isgro, Cinti, Sanchez-Valarolo, M Carreras; Albornoz, Garcia; Vivas, Montoya (capt), Delgado, Petti, Alemanno, Matera, Grondona, Oviedo.

Replacements: Ruiz, Wenger, Rapetti, Molina, Moro, Moyano, Moroni, Delguy.

Scotland: Rowe; Steyn, Hutchinson, Tuipulotu (capt), Dobie; Jordan, White; Schoeman, Ashman, Millar-Mills, Gray, Cummings, M Fagerson, Darge, Dempsey.

Replacements: Hiddleston, Sutherland, Z Fagerson, Samuel, Brown, Horne, Burke, Graham.