Matt Banahan's late try gave England victory over Argentina, but the win did little to paper over the cracks for a disappointing home side at Twickenham.

Martin Johnson’s men crashed to an 18-9 defeat at home to Australia last week. And things looked little better when they were booed off by their own fans with the half-time score locked at 9-9.

Even Jonny Wilkinson missed three successive penalty kicks in the second period and the hosts looked in real danger of crashing to defeat against an under-strength Argentina side.

But the South Americans also missed three penalties of their own, and a late try by former sevens star Banahan saw off a Pumas side which included three full debutants, four amateurs and an inexperienced halfback pairing.

England manager Johnson said: “It was a disappointing performance but when the pressure’s on and the nerves are jangling it’s about winning.

“A lot of it was individual errors and going into the second half it was going to be tight. Maybe it was a bit of nerves, they put pressure on you and it becomes a dogfight. I said to the guys that when it gets to that it’s about winning, it was tough to watch from our point of view.

“The players are happy they won but disappointed with what they did.”

England were meant to learn from the mistakes of last week’s defeat to Australia but they made the same old errors, consistently kicking away possession.

But Wilkinson, scorer of all nine points last week, still managed to put England on track with an early drop goal and two penalties.

Debutant Argentina back Martin Rodriguez replied with three penalties, but the centre also missed three, as England were repeatedly penalised amid their errors.

There was little improvement from England after the break and when the normally reliable Wilkinson sent three successive goal kicks wide the crowd sensed trouble.

But ten minutes from the end England were saved when a sharp pass from Lewis Moody opened the way for Banahan to cross in the corner and score under the posts.

Wilkinson converted but England were forced to spend the last five minutes defending their own line as the Pumas looked for an equalising score.
The performance was worrying, given the fact that the All Blacks visit Twickenham next week.

* Andy Robinson’s reign as Scotland coach got off to a fine start with a 23-10 win over Fiji at Murrayfield. Johnnie Beattie and Graeme Morrison scored the tries.

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