Argentina v England Prediction, Preview & Odds – 2023 RWC Bronze Final

We have an England v Argentina prediction for you plus a breakdown of the odds and team news ahead of the 2023 Rugby World Cup Bronze Final.

It is no surprise that England and Argentina are facing off in this game given the fact that they were both heavy underdogs going into last weekend’s Semi-Finals. Both teams were beneficiaries of the easier side of the draw at this Rugby World Cup but were unable to capitalise at the Semi-Final stage when the level of competition ramped up.

With that said, England will be heartbroken after their Semi-Final loss to South Africa. In fairness to the English, they gave a great account of themselves in that game and will feel hard done by not to have pulled off a massive shock.

On the other hand, the Argentines will feel embarrassed by their showing in the Semi-Final against New Zealand. The margin of defeat was 38 points in the end as the All Blacks completely dominated Argentina from the opening minutes of the game.

This will be a rematch of the opening round fixture in Pool D on September 9th. On that occasion, England won 27-10 despite a one-man disadvantage for the majority of the game.

So which team will end their 2023 Rugby World Cup on a high? Find out everything you need to know about this Rugby World Cup’s Bronze Final (or third-place playoff if you prefer) below!

How To Watch England v Argentina

When is England v Argentina

England v Argentina is scheduled to kick-off at 8.00 pm on Friday, October 28th.

TV Channel

In the United Kingdom England v Argentina will be broadcast on ITV1 with pre-match buildup from 7.30 pm.

In Ireland, TV viewers can watch the game on Virgin Media One with pre-match coverage beginning at 7.30 pm.

Live Stream

In the UK you can stream this game on ITVX.

If you are in Ireland the game can be live streamed on Virgin Media Player.

Where is England v Argentina Being Played?

The Bronze Final will be played in the Stade de France, Saint-Denis.

Interestingly, both teams played their Semi-Final games in the Stade de France so it will undoubtedly bring back some bad memories for both squads.

England v Argentina Odds

England are comfortable 2/5 favourites to win the 2023 Rugby World Cup Bronze Final. Argentina are the underdogs for this game at 21/10.

If you fancy the draw after 80 minutes (and for some reason would like to see extra time) you can back it at 22/1.

Handicap Betting

England: -7 @ 10/11

Argentina +7 @ 10/11

Handicap Draw: +7 @ 18/1

Click Below For Our LIVE England v Argentina Odds

Team News

England Team News

Head Coach Steve Borthwick has made plenty of changes to the squad for the Bronze Final. In total, there are eight changes from the team that was narrowly beaten by South Africa in last weekend’s Semi-Final.

Marcus Smith returns at fullback after playing there in the Quarter-Final against Fiji. Freddie Stewart who played fullback against the Springboks rotates to the wing while Jonny May drops out of the squad entirely and is replaced on the wing by Henry Arundell.

The front row has been swapped out entirely with props Ellis Genge and Will Stuart given the start either side of Theo Dan at hooker.

Rounding out the new-look starting XV are Ollie Chessum who comes in at 5 and Sam Underhill who will wear 7 while Tom Curry (who has been scrutinised a lot during the week) will rotate to 6 in place of Courtney Lawes.

England Starting XV

1. Ellis Genge
2. Theo Dan
3. Will Stuart
4. Maro Itoje
5. Ollie Chessum
6. Tom Curry
7. Sam Underhill
8. Ben Earl
9. Ben Youngs
10. Owen Farrell ©
11. Henry Arundell
12. Manu Tuilagi
13. Joe Marchant
14. Freddie Steward
15. Marcus Smith

Replacements

16. Jamie George

17. Bevan Rodd

18. Dan Cole

19. David Ribbans

20. Lewis Ludlam

21. Danny Care

22. George Ford

23. Ollie Lawrence

Argentina Team News

Los Pumas will retain most of their starters from last weekend’s 44-6 hammering at the hands of New Zealand.

Argentina Head Coach Michael Cheika has opted for only three changes to the XV that started the Semi-Final.

Those three changes are Tomas Cubelli coming in to start at scrum-half in place of Gonzalo Bertranou, Pedro Rubiolo replacing Tomas Lavinini at 5 while Jeronimo de la Fuente takes the place of Santiago Chocobares at inside-centre.

Argentina Starting XV

1. Thomas Gallo
2. Julian Montoya
3. Francisco Gomez Kodela
4. Guido Petti Pagadizabal
5. Pedro Rubiolo
6. Juan Martin Gonzalez
7. Marcos Kremer
8. Facundo Isa
9. Tomas Cubelli
10. Santiago Carreras
11. Mateo Carreras
12. Jeronimo de la Fuente
13. Lucio Cinti
14. Emiliano Boffelli
15. Juan Cruz Mallia

Replacements

16. Agustin Creevy

17. Joel Sclavi

18. Eduardo Bello

19. Matias Alemanno

20. Rodrigo Bruni

21. Lautaro Bazan Velez

22. Nicolas Sanchez

23. Matias Moroni

Who are the officiating team?

Referee: Nic Berry (Australia)

Assistant Referees: Andrew Brace (Ireland) and Nika Amashukeli (Georgia)

TMO: Ben Whitehouse (Wales)

England v Argentina Weather Forecast

Conditions for this Semi-Final are expected to be calm so the elements should not be a factor in the performance of either side in this game.

Temperature

A high of 15°C and a low of 12°C are expected.

Wind

Winds are expected to be minimal and in the region of 8mph in the first half, rising to 11mph for the second half.

Rain

There is expected to be 0.0mm of rain during the game.

England v Argentina Preview

England’s Form

England’s 2023 Rugby World Cup Form

England entered their Semi-Final tie against The Springboks as huge underdogs and while they ultimately fell short at the second last hurdle it was far from the easy victory for South Africa that plenty of people were forecasting.

A Handre Pollard penalty in the 78th minute was the only thing that stopped this under-fire English side from securing a shock victory and place in this year’s Rugby World Cup Final.

Below is a recap of how England reached the 2023 Rugby World Cup Bronze Final.

Pool D

England started their Rugby World Cup off against Argentina in Pool D with plenty tipping the Southern Hemisphere team to cause an upset. That wasn’t the case though as England led by George Ford put Argentina to the sword to win 27-10.

That was followed by a 34-12 victory against Japan and while England were unspectacular they again did the job required and won. Farrell returned to the side against Chile and they ran out 71-0 winners.

England wobbled through their final pool game to defeat Samoa 18-17 and confirm their status as Pool D winners.

Quarter-Final

England were handed a Quarter-Final tie against Fiji and while that would be considered “easy” in normal circumstances, England had been beaten by the Fijians in the lead-up to the tournament.

Nevertheless, England got the job done winning out unspectacularly again 30-24 to reach the Semi-Final.

Semi-Final

England were not fancied in the Semi-Final against South Africa who were heavy favourites to reach the World Cup Final.

However, England to their credit put in an exceptional performance before narrowly losing out 15-16 to the Springboks.

England’s Rugby World Cup Results

England 27-10 Argentina | Pool D, Saturday, September 9th.

England 34-12 Japan | Pool D, Sunday, September 17th.

England 71-0 Chile | Pool D, Saturday, September 23rd.

England 18-17 Samoa | Pool D, Saturday, October 7th.

England 30-24 Fiji | Quarter-Final, Sunday, October 15th.

England 15-16 South Africa | Semi-Final, Saturday, October 21st. 

Argentina’s Form

Argentina’s 2023 Rugby World Cup Form

Argentina are in the Rugby World Cup Bronze Final despite not plucking up many trees throughout the competition. Plenty of people were expecting them to even give the All Blacks a challenge in the Semi-Final but they were made light work of, losing out 6-44.

Here’s a brief recap of how Argentina reached the Bronze Final.

Pool D

Argentina started this Rugby World Cup off against England in Pool D. Many expected the Argentines to beat England that day. Instead, England dominated Argentina from the opening whistle to hand the Argentines a humbling 27-10 defeat.

Los Pumas would soon bounce back however in their next Pool D outing in a 19-10 win over Samoa. With that said, their performance didn’t exactly look like that of a team that had serious ambitions of winning this World Cup.

Next up for Argentina was a facile 59-5 victory over tournament rookies and neighbours Chile.

Those two wins set Los Pumas up with a de facto knockout game against Japan to advance to the Quarter-Finals. That game was end-to-end with a lot of suspect defending. Argentina proved to have too much attacking firepower for Japan to cope with which saw them prevail on a scoreline of 39-27.

Quarter-Final

Wales awaited Argentina in the Quarter-Final with little separating the sides in terms of quality. This was by no means a vintage Wales team which gave Argentina a great opportunity to advance to the Semi-Final for the first time since 2015.

The Argentines grabbed that opportunity with both hands as they held out late attacks by Wales before scoring a try of their own off an interception to book their spot in the Semi-Final and send the Welsh crashing out.

Semi-Final

Despite not plucking up many trees throughout the tournament for their performances, some still predicted that their clash against New Zealand would be the closer of the two Semi-Finals.

That proved to be far from the case with the All Blacks winning out on a convincing 6-44 scoreline.

Argentina’s Rugby World Cup Results

England 27-10 Argentina | Pool D, Saturday, September 9th.

Argentina 19-10 Samoa | Pool D, Friday, September 22nd.

Argentina 59-5 Chile | Pool D, Saturday, September 30th.

Japan 27-39 Argentina | Pool D, Sunday, October 8th.

Wales 17-29 Argentina | Quarter-Final, Saturday, October 14th.

Argentina 6-44 New Zealand | Semi-Final, Friday, October 20th.

England v Argentina Rugby Head-To-Head

All-Time Head-To-Head Record

These two teams have played each other twenty-six times. England have won 20 of those matches, Argentina have five wins and there has been one draw between the two nations.

In the Rugby World Cup, England and Argentina have faced off four times with England winning all of those games including a victory against the Argentines earlier in this tournament.

Here are the last five results between these two teams:

Head-To-Head Results Last Five Matches

England 27 – 10 Argentina | September 9, 2023 | Marseille, France

England 29 – 30 Argentina | November 6, 2022 | Twickenham, England

England 39 – 10 Argentina | October 5, 2019 | Tokyo, Japan

England 21 – 8 Argentina | November 11, 2017 | Twickenham, England

Argentina 25 – 35 England | June 17, 2017 | Santa Fe, Argentina

Trends

England have won four of the last five games between these two sides.

Key Players To Watch

Owen Farrell – England

The English captain since returning to the side has silenced plenty of his critics. He put in an exceptional performance against South Africa where he scored all 15 of England’s points as they narrowly missed out on a Semi-Final place by a solitary point.

This came after a Quarter-Final victory against Fiji when he clocked up a 20-point total including a successful drop goal in their five-point victory. If he’s up for this Bronze Final then we can expect another scoring spree.

It’s also worth noting that at 32 years of age, this could be Farrell’s last time representing England at the Rugby World Cup.

Emiliano Boffelli – Argentina

Argentina’s primary points threat Emiliano Bofelli (28) had 273 points for his country from 53 caps before coming into the tournament and he has continued that fine scoring form at this World Cup.

His 57-point tournament total puts him as the fourth-highest scorer at this year’s World Cup. He trails Johnny Sexton by one point, Owen Farrell by two and France’s Thomas Ramos by 17 points. A big performance here could see him surpass Ramos to be the Tournament’s top points scorer.

England v Argentina Prediction & Best Bet

Prediction: England 32-14 Argentina

England, despite their critics, came agonisingly close to reaching the World Cup Final for their exploits against South Africa last weekend. If they continue that form into this one they should win even more comfortably than they did in the Pool game.

With that said, it remains to be seen whether their bodies and minds will have recovered from the South Africa game.

People continue to predict a big Argentinian performance in this tournament and it’s very simply yet to happen. Their 6-44 defeat against The All Blacks showed that they’re simply far off the required level to reach a World Cup Final. However, any sort of performance against England could make this a tight affair.

I think England win this comfortably again.

Best Bet: England -8 @ EVS

Enjoy this post? Then you’ll definitely want to check out our 2023 Rugby World Cup Final preview!

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