England 18 Argentina 25: The English Rugby Football Union will announce disappointing financial results this week and a further significant loss is now inevitable. Andy Robinson has been on borrowed time since his previous coaching team were sacked in April, and this dreadful performance removed any last scintilla of doubt. If he has not gone by teatime today it will be yet another misjudgment to add to a damningly long list.
For a coach who almost three years ago was basking in the glow of winning a World Cup, it is cruel confirmation that every top job in elite British sport is, in effect, a suspended sentence. In Robinson's case, unfortunately, the debit column is now full to overflowing. This was England's seventh straight defeat, equalling their worst run in more than 130 years of internationals.
To retain a lame-duck figurehead would merely compound the original error of clinging on to Robinson when his former lieutenants Phil Larder, Dave Alred and Joe Lydon departed at the end of last season. The idea was that Robinson's team would kick on under the tutelage of Brian Ashton, John Wells and Mike Ford. Self-evidently, that has not happened.
At Saturday's final whistle Twickenham Man could remain stiff-upper-lipped no more, howling in frustration as Argentina's players celebrated and the home team slunk disconsolately away. The Pumas deserved rather more in the way of applause for a cherished first win at HQ, rising above their acute cash-flow problems to produce what their coach, Marcelo Loffreda, called "one of the top four or five results in our history".
Robinson, despite his stubborn insistence yesterday that he will not resign, should be put out of his misery sooner rather than later. Bad results can happen. But when a side that has already strung together six losses makes as many errors as England did here, something has to give. The boos were totally deserved. Patience has become wafer-thin since last spring's abject defeat to France in Paris and on Saturday evening it snapped.
Who to blame? The team all put their hands up individually, none more so than the captain, Martin Corry. "No one can be held responsible apart from the players," he said.
In truth, though, England are falling between two stools. For years they won without playing much rugby. Now they aspire to play like millionaires and find themselves in the gutter, the down-and-outs of world rugby.
"Brian has brought a different emphasis and a lot of guys are being asked to play outside the way they perform week in, week out," admitted Wells, hinting at a clash of cultures within the coaching set-up.
Yet without two spectacular long-range individual tries from Paul Sackey and Iain Balshaw, England would have been totally embarrassed by opponents, some of them amateurs, who had barely four days' preparation and lacked at least four first-choice players. The English forwards, in particular, looked off the pace from the start. Whether it was ageing or tired legs, or stage fright, is quite irrelevant now.
The all-important hinge between number eight and scrumhalf squeaked ominously before collapsing. The experiment of playing Pat Sanderson in the middle of the back row was one of umpteen failures. Apart from one clean break, the Worcester captain was a forlorn figure.
Behind him, Shaun Perry endured the flip side of his rapid rise from Dudley Kingswinford RFC. At times poor Charlie Hodgson was like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke.
Hodgson is a gifted playmaker who can, at times, wilt under pressure. Even so, hauling him off early was a knee-jerk decision that only made things worse. Not only did it guarantee Hodgson's confidence would be shredded for months but it exposed young Toby Flood to an impossible situation on his debut.
Sure enough, Flood was barely on when he threw a hasty pass straight to his opposite number, Federico Todeschini, who galloped 60 metres to score. In that instant, said their exultant captain Gus Pichot, the Pumas knew their hosts were dead meat.
Fortress Twickenham? England were unbeaten here for what seemed like decades. Now it is nine months since they last won anywhere.
"Everyone needs to have a little bit of patience," pleaded Robinson yesterday. It is too late for that. Where once there was supreme confidence there is now a black hole of uncertainty. Todeschini, who scored 22 of his side's points, is a beautiful kicker and he duly applied his cultured boot to English rugby's nether regions.
Robinson, honest and well intentioned but lacking the motivational X factor, has to go. To cling on even until the end of the month would be to ignore the obvious. In three years, England have descended from the top of the world to ground zero.
ENGLAND: Balshaw; Sackey, Noon, Allen, Cohen; Hodgson, Perry; Freshwater, Chuter, White; Grewcock, Kay; Corry (capt), Moody, Sanderson. Replacements: Richards for Perry (48 mins), Palmer for Grewcock (50 mins), Flood for Hodgson (52 mins), Lewsey for Sackey (54 mins), Mears for Chuter, Lund for Sanderson (both 69 mins).
ARGENTINA: Hernandez; Nunez Piossek, Tiesi, Avramovic, Gomez Cora; Contepomi, Pichot; Ayerza, Ledesma, Hasan; I Fernandez Lobbe, Albacete; Leguizamon, JM Fernandez Lobbe, Longo. Replacements: Todeschini for Tiesi (23 mins), Agulla for Avramovic, Lozada for I Fernandez Lobbe (both 57 mins), Scelzo for Hasan (65 mins), Schusterman for Leguizamon (66 mins).
Referee: K Deaker (New Zealand)
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