Hawick’s Darcy Graham and Rory Sutherland help Scotland get off to winning start in rugby’s Nations Championship

The Hawick pair were both brought off the bench by fellow Borderer Townsend, 53, just ahead of the hour mark during the Sione Tuipulotu-skippered Scots’ 47-38 victory in Cordoba, making amends for a 33-24 loss at home to the Pumas at Edinburgh’s Murrayfield Stadium last November.

Edinburgh’s Graham, 29, took over from Kyle Steyn on the right wing and Glasgow Warriors’ Sutherland, 33, replaced Pierre Schoeman at loosehead prop.

Graham, Scotland’s top all-time try-scorer with 38, is now on 56 caps, all but nine of them starts, and fellow ex-Green Sutherland is on 49, 27 of them as a substitute.

Scotland’s tries against Argentina were scored by inside-centre Tuipulotu on 18 minutes, Schoeman on 23, outside-centre Rory Hutchinson on 36, replacement lock Gregor Brown on 52, No 5 Scott Cummings on 56, substitute hooker Gregor Hiddleston on 69 and full-back Kyle Rowe on 74, with Tom Jordan and his replacement at fly-half, Fergus Burke, kicking three conversions each.

Joaquin Oviedo, Rodrigo Isgro, Tomas Rapetti, Lucio Cinti and Augustin Moyano touched down the Argentinians’ tries on seven minutes, 42, 66, 77 and 79 respectively, with Tomas Albornoz adding five conversions and a penalty.

Former Gala and Border Reivers back Townsend was delighted to start the new competition with a bonus-point win, crediting that result to the reaction sparked by November’s defeat, their third loss to Argentina in five fixtures.

“Now, looking back, we’re very grateful for that defeat,” he said after Saturday’s match.

“It was really painful at the time to be in a winning position and then to disappoint your own crowd, but the week after I felt that we became a much better team.

“We had more honest conversations and then during the Six Nations, we were more prepared for momentum swings in the game.

“Sometimes your biggest growth comes from adversity, from your most painful moments, and I’ve seen that with the team.

“Today was another step forward, coming to Argentina, who are playing so much good rugby, and winning away from home, but I know there’s a lot more in the team.

“We can trace a lot back to those final 20 minutes at Murrayfield to see how much we’ve improved since then.

“I think there are areas in the game we need to improve. From a coaching perspective, if you’re going to win and you play well and you’ve still got things you can improve, that’s the ideal scenario.

“We came here to play a team ranked fifth in the world at the time and scored seven tries.

“I was so proud of some of the individual performances but just the team too.

“We were tested. Argentina dominated possession for the first ten minutes and then in the second half, they came right back into the game, but we were able to change both scenarios around and really impose our game on them and get the points on the board.”

Next up for Townsend’s team is a trip to Pretoria to play South Africa, 45-21 winners hosting England in Johannesburg at the weekend, this coming Saturday, with kick-off at 4.40pm, and they wrap up their summer championship itinerary at home to Fiji on Saturday, July 18, that being a 2.10pm start.

His squad – now ranked fifth in the world, up two places to match their previous highest position – head to the Loftus Versfeld Stadium hoping for a first victory versus the top-ranked Springboks since one by 21-17 at Murrayfield in November 2010, with all of their nine meetings in the interim going the way of the world champions, the most recent by 32-15 in Edinburgh in November 2024.

Looking ahead to round two of the championship, Townsend added: “It’ll be a big challenge against the No 1 team in the world.

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

Making up the rest of Saturday’s starting line-up in South America were left-winger Jamie Dobie, scrum-half Ben White, hooker Ewan Ashman, tighthead prop Elliot Millar Mills, locks Jonny Gray and Scott Cummings, No 8 Jack Dempsey, blindside flanker Matt Fagerson and ex-Southern Knight Rory Darge at openside flanker.

Joining Graham, Sutherland, Burke, Brown and Hiddleston on the replacements’ bench were Zander Fagerson, Alex Samuel and George Horne.

Townsend’s squad to face the Springboks is to be named today.