Wallabies in Jujuy: Australia Beat Argentina 27-21
Argentina 21–27 Australia | Estadio 23 de Agosto, Jujuy, 29 August 2026
Australia lead the two-test series 1-0. Mendoza, 5 September, decides the Puma Trophy.
FULL TIME — 29 August 2026: Australia won the first test of the Wallabies in Jujuy series 27-21, and for twenty minutes it looked like it would be far worse for Los Pumas. Two tries inside the opening quarter put the visitors 19-7 ahead in front of a packed Estadio 23 de Agosto, on a ground hosting its first southern hemisphere visitor. Argentina steadied to trail 22-14 at the break.
The second half turned. Los Pumas scored first after the restart to close within a single point at 22-21, and for ten minutes the match hung on the next score. It went to Australia: Tom Hooper crossed in the 55th minute to restore a six-point cushion, and Les Kiss’s side defended it for the final twenty-five minutes without conceding again.
For a Los Pumas squad missing twelve senior players through club commitments — including captain Julián Montoya, Marcos Kremer and Santiago Chocobares — losing by six to a Wallabies team that had just swept Japan is not a collapse. But the Puma Trophy, which Argentina have held since 2023, now hangs on Mendoza next Saturday.
The Wallabies in Jujuy on 29 August will be doing something no southern hemisphere team has done before: playing a test match at the Estadio 23 de Agosto. Argentina have hosted Italy and Scotland at the ground in the far northwest of the country, but never Australia, New Zealand or South Africa. For a stadium that Argentines call La Tacita de Plata — the little silver cup — it is the biggest fixture in its 53-year history.
Estadio 23 de Agosto: Where the Wallabies in Jujuy Will Play
The ground sits in San Salvador de Jujuy, roughly 1,500 kilometres northwest of Buenos Aires, closer to the Bolivian border than to the Argentine capital. It holds 25,000, opened on 18 March 1973, and belongs to the football club Gimnasia y Esgrima de Jujuy. Its name commemorates the Éxodo Jujeño of 23 August 1812, when the entire population of the province burned their homes and marched south rather than leave anything for the advancing Spanish army. It is not a neutral piece of naming. Jujuy takes it seriously.
Los Pumas have used the venue intermittently since 2005, when they hosted Italy there. The most recent test was in 2022, when Argentina beat Scotland 26-18. Both of those were against northern hemisphere opposition. The Wallabies in Jujuy will face something the ground has not previously produced: a crowd that regards the visitors as genuine rivals rather than curiosities.
The city sits at roughly 1,200 metres above sea level. That is meaningful without being decisive — nothing like the 1,750 metres that make Ellis Park a genuine physiological problem for touring sides. What it does mean is a slightly faster ball in the air and a dry winter atmosphere that rewards accurate kicking.
The Wallabies in Jujuy: Ikitau and Suaalii Return
Les Kiss has named a 34-man squad — 19 forwards, 15 backs — with Harry Wilson captaining. The headline is the return of two centres who sat out the Japan series: Len Ikitau, the 2025 John Eales Medallist and Australia’s best player of last season, and Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii, the cross-code signing whose test career has been built on exactly this kind of fixture.
That matters because Australia’s midfield was the one area they did not need to solve against Japan. Getting Ikitau and Suaalii back in the same squad, in form, gives Kiss a first-choice spine for the first time in his tenure. The Wallabies in Jujuy will be closer to a full-strength Australian side than anything seen since the 2023 World Cup.
The Wallabies in Jujuy arrive in form. Australia swept Japan 2-0, recovering from a nervy 35-32 win in Osaka to demolish Eddie Jones’ side 56-17 in Townsville with eight tries. Our full report on that second test covers how the performance changed the read on this squad.
Argentina: Depth, Not Choice
Felipe Contepomi’s group tells a different story. Argentina named 34 players including ten uncapped, because twelve senior Pumas — captain Julián Montoya, Marcos Kremer, Santiago Chocobares, Mateo Carreras among them — were unavailable. The reason is structural rather than sporting: with no Rugby Championship in 2026, these tests fall outside World Rugby’s mandatory release window, so clubs were under no obligation to let anyone go. Contepomi negotiated club by club. We covered that in detail in our piece on the Los Pumas squad for this series.
What Argentina do have is form of their own. On 8 August they pushed South Africa to 17-10 in Buenos Aires with a similarly depleted group, a penalty striking the upright with Los Pumas ahead in the second half. Twelve members of the squad play for British clubs; twelve more come from Super Rugby Americas at home.
What Each Coach Actually Wants
Les Kiss is two tests into the job with a World Cup on home soil in October 2027. Beating Japan twice proved very little — Australia have never lost to them. A series win in Argentina, away, at a hostile venue, against a side ranked above them, is the first result of his tenure that would carry real evidential weight — which is why the Wallabies in Jujuy matter more to him than the Japan sweep did. He also needs to know whether the Ikitau–Suaalii midfield works against a defence that will actually test it.
Felipe Contepomi wants something less glamorous and arguably more valuable: to find out which of his ten uncapped players can survive test rugby. He has been handed a squad by circumstance rather than selection, and the 2027 World Cup pool stage — Argentina face Fiji, Spain and Canada in Pool C — will be won or lost on depth. Two home tests against a top-eight side is the best laboratory he will get before then.
The Puma Trophy and the Rankings
The Puma Trophy is on the line when the Wallabies in Jujuy take the field, and Argentina have held it since 2023, when they won it on Australian soil. Fewer than one place separates the two nations: according to World Rugby, Argentina sit seventh on 83.13 points and Australia eighth on 82.67. A single result will swap them.
That gap matters more than it looks. Rugby World Cup 2027 seeding is drawn from these rankings, and the difference between seventh and eighth can decide which half of the draw a team lands in — and therefore whether they meet South Africa or Ireland in a quarter-final.
How to Watch
The Wallabies in Jujuy kick off at 16:00 local time on Saturday 29 August, which is 20:00 BST in the UK on Sky Sports. The second test follows on 5 September at the Estadio Malvinas Argentinas in Mendoza.
The same afternoon, South Africa host New Zealand in Cape Town for the second test of Rugby’s Greatest Rivalry — see our preview of the Springboks second test. It is the fullest Saturday of southern hemisphere rugby in the 2026 calendar.
Watch the Series
📺 Amazon Fire TV Stick — stream the Jujuy and Mendoza tests on Sky Sports.
📖 Pumas: A History of Argentine Rugby — how Argentina built a tier-one side without a professional domestic league.
🍺 Craft beer hampers on Amazon UK — for an 8pm Saturday kick-off.
