The China Mail - Earl double guides England past Argentina after dramatic ending

Los Pumas fly-half Tomas Albornoz was denied a chance to claim a dramatic draw with a conversion attempt after winger Bautista Delguy's 83rd-minute touchdown was chalked off after a discussion between the referee and television match official.

Earl made his contributions in an eight-minute first-half spell in Santiago del Estero as England claimed a second straight victory in the competition.

For Argentina it was a second defeat in their opening three games in a poor yet emotionally-driven display, hours out from their footballing counterparts eyeing a defence of their World Cup crown against Spain in New York.

"It went right until the end, really dramatic," England winger Immanuel Feyi-Waboso told ESPN.

"It was a hard-fought victory. Discipline wasn't great from us.

"We managed to see out the victory in the end," he added after his side were shown four yellow cards.

The build-up to the fixture had been tense throughout the week but only spilled over onto the pitch in a few low-key incidents.

Argentina's footballers beat England in the World Cup semi-finals on Wednesday before the visitors' back-rower Henry Pollock was filmed taunting Argentine fans on the streets of the capital city while sat on the team bus.

England captain Jamie George said on Friday his side would walk off the pitch if they suffered racist abuse after Asher Opoku-Fordjour and Chandler Cunningham-South heard discriminatory remarks last year in San Juan.

- Pollock whistled -

Los Pumas head coach Felipe Contepomi made two changes from last weekend's second round win over Wales with Matias Moroni at outside centre and Mayco Vivas at tight-head prop.

Divisive Pollock was once again named on the bench by Steve Borthwick despite scoring a hat-trick against Fiji last week.

An extra bit of spice to the fixture came as Los Pumas ran out in a re-make of Argentina's football kit, which they wore as they beat England in the 1986 World Cup quarter-finals, best remembered for Diego Maradona's Hand of God goal.

England led 12-0 after 25 minutes as winger Tommy Freeman scored and Earl claimed his first try of the game.

Things worsened for Contepomi's side as they were down to 14 men with winger Mateo Carreras yellow-carded for a shoulder hit.

Borthwick's dominant outfit led 19-3 at the break as Earl claimed his second from the base of a scrum after fly-half Albornoz slotted a penalty for an out-of-sorts Argentina.

After the interval, Carreras made up for his earlier misdemeanour by crawling over before England scrum-half Jack van Poortvliet was sent to the sin bin with the score at 19-10 with less than half an hour to play.

Five minutes later their advantage was just two points as Argentina were awarded a penalty try after Alex Coles slapped the ball down metres from his line.

Coles followed Van Poortvliet to the bin and Borthwick's side were temporarily on the rocks.

Argentina were then down a player as No 8 Joaquin Oviedo was binned which gave England the impetus to take control of the game again by crossing as full-back Marcus Smith dived over.

Pumas full-back Santiago Carreras was shown a yellow card for a failed interception in the build-up to the try with the score 26-17.

With 11 minutes left the result was settled as Feyi-Waboso jotted down.

England ended with 13 men as Pollock and Emmanuel Iyogun were yellow-carded, a sixth and seventh card handed out by referee Angus Gardner during the game, with the sizeable home crowd whistling the blonde-haired 21-year-old off the field.

Argentina's failed comeback was started by Justo Piccardo's effort seconds before the end of normal time and Delguy's effort was chalked off despite disagreement between Gardner and his TMO Bret Cronan.

N.Lo--ThChM