The impending Budget may provide grim portents over the economy’s prospects but for England’s rugby team, the signs of growth are clear. With a win over Argentina, Steve Borthwick’s ever-more impressive side completed 2025 unbeaten on home soil and rolling into the Six Nations on a run of 11 consecutive victories. After last year’s winter of discontent for English rugby, a Christmas of greater cheer beckons despite an imperfect performance here.
For the first time since 2016 and the heady early days of Eddie Jones, four southern hemisphere sides have come to Twickenham in November and sent back over the equator beaten. If New Zealand last week was England’s defining challenge of a Quilter Nations Series in which they avoided international rugby’s biggest beast, South Africa, this win over an Argentina team full of threat was nonetheless another showing to illustrate England’s progress.
