Itoje: “There Are No Excuses”
British and Irish Lions captain Maro Itoje lamented his team’s inability to capitalise on their openings, after they lost their first match of the Australia 2025 tour to Argentina 28-24 on Friday.
British And Irish Lions
Argentina
Aki (18'), Penalty Try (45'), Beirne (52')
Tries
Mendy (11'), Albornoz (40'), Cordero (58')
Smith (19', 53')
Conversions
Albornoz (41', 59')
Smith (9')
Penalties
Albornoz (4', 25', 39')
British and Irish Lions captain Maro Itoje lamented his team’s inability to capitalise on their openings, after they lost their first match of the Australia 2025 tour to Argentina 28-24 on Friday.
Andy Farrell’s team scored tries through Ireland’s Bundee Aki and Tadhg Beirne, and received a penalty try, while Fin Smith kicked a penalty and two conversions at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.
Los Pumas scored three of their own through Ignacio Mendy, Tomas Albornoz, and Santiago Cordero. Albornoz also scored 13 points with his boot.
“We gave ourselves numerous opportunities, but we weren't accurate enough at times and weren't consistent enough in putting Argentina under pressure, Itoje said.
“As we improve our relationships and spend more time together in training and understanding each other's triggers, it'll come.
“There are no excuses. We should have been better today but as with other areas of the game, we'll learn and get better together.”
LINEOUT BLUES
Of particular concern for Farrell and Itoje was the lineout.
The Lions won 14 of their 18 throws. Both hookers – Luke Cowan-Dickie and Ronan Kelleher – had issues finding their jumpers, and even when they did the ball didn’t always make it smoothly back to the scrumhalf.
There were also issues for wing Duhan van der Merwe under the high ball, and the Argentina defence flooded the centre channels which meant attacks were developed too far behind the gain line.
“You can try and throw it all around and say we had plenty of opportunities and we should have done better, but the story of the game is we compounded too many errors and weren't able to put the pace on the game that we wanted to because of that,” Farrell said.
“The Lions players are good players coming together. We ask a lot of them and maybe we put too much pressure on the side because it certainly looked like we were a bit disconnected at times.
PUMAS PROWLING
“Some players will be happy, others won't and will be dying to get another chance, but look we know where we're at, we're under way so we need to learn a lot of lessons from that.”
For Argentina – fifth in the world rankings – it was an impressive display after a week together in the Irish capital.
They will now look forward with confidence to England’s two-test visit in July and the Rugby Championship.
“We wanted to try and start where we left last November and try to evolve from there,” Argentina coach Felipe Contepomi said.
“The guys were fantastic. We had a really good week in training but also bonding. Those 80 minutes are about expressing yourself and doing what we said we would do.
“We know it wasn’t perfect, there’s lots to do, but I’m so proud for the whole 32 because the way they behaved was unbelievable.”