Wallabies, Pumas play out 15-all draw in Tri Nations

Skipper Michael Hooper pinpointed playmaker Nicolas Sanchez, along with former Wallabies coach Michael Cheika, as threats Friday as Australia look to avoid the embarrassing fate of New Zealand when they face Argentina.

"... It's got to be better across the board in regards to our kicking options and our communication around that and we need multiple people contributing to that".

Dave Rennie's Australia are now in their sights in Newcastle, as they hunt for their first back-to-back wins against Tier 1 opposition since defeating Italy and France in June 2016.

"It's disappointing, we should have closed that out and really we've got ourselves to blame".

"Argentina have been getting better every year since we started playing them". "We knew that if we score some points they would get nervous because the difference should have been more than that".

Argentina slipped into a quagmire after being conceding a nine points lead in the second-half before Nicolas Sanchez pullled them out of the rot to keep their hopes alive.

Australia had all the early possession and should have wrapped up the game in the first half, but two disallowed tries hindered their progress.

"If we could have scored straight after half-time, it probably would have blown the game open".

Australia thought it had the opening try of the match when a clever grubber kick by Hunter Paisami was acrobatically grounded in the in-goal area by Jordan Petaia, but the television referee found that the Wallabies center had his foot on the line as he placed the ball down. "They'd made a lot of tackles and we felt they were fatiguing and they were just hanging in there", said Rennie.

Reece Hodge had the chance to reclaim the lead two minutes from full-time but pushed a long-range penalty attempt just wide.

A defiant Argentina put up a gritty performance to eke out a hard-fought 15-15 draw against Australia in their Tri Nations match on Saturday. New Zealand have lost two and won one, while the Pumas have games in hand, winning thier only match so far. Currently, all three teams are locked on six points. They have a return clash against the All Blacks in a week's time before facing Australia once more.

Ledesma felt a draw was a fair result and praised his men after their draining exploits against the All Blacks. "A win would put us in a pretty strong position", said Rennie.

"But they just don't realise how hard it is to play against the All Blacks, being drained emotionally and physically. and play against a fresh Australian team who had the week off and a great game plan and all the opportunities".