Argentina vs New Zealand Prediction: Incredible New Zealand to kick off their campaign with a win

The Rugby Championship will take place in Mendoza, and the defending champions, New Zealand, will make the trip there to compete against Argentina. The favorites, New Zealand, will seek to get off to a winning start in their defense of their title, while the home team, Argentina, will be hoping to make the most of playing on their own territory and getting off to a strong start in the competition this year.

The year 2022 was a very disappointing one for Argentina as a whole, especially for a team that had hit all-time highs by winning an away game in New Zealand for the first time in their history. After coming in last place for the sixth year in a row in a four-nation Rugby Championship, they ended their autumn tour of the northern hemisphere with humbling defeats at the hands of Wales and Scotland. In order to allow time for World Cup warm-up matches to take place in Europe and the UK next month, the Pumas have received by far the toughest draw of this condensed Rugby Championship (R) season. Before heading to Australia and South Africa in relatively fast succession, Argentina will only play one game at home, and it will be against New Zealand, who has won the tournament eight times in a row and whom they have never beaten at home.

The All Blacks played some of their worst rugby during the early part of the international season. They suffered their first ever series loss at home to Ireland, which prompted many people to ask for the head coach, Lan Foster, to be fired in time for a replacement to be able to settle in before the World Cup. Foster returned the faith shown in him by guiding the team to a seven-game unbeaten run (W6, D1) to close 2022, which resulted in them retaining their title as champions of the Rugby Championship. They also gained revenge for their shocking loss to Argentina in Christchurch by defeating them 53-3 in Hamilton one week later. That defeat appeared to have awoken the beast, and although they failed to cover the pre-match line in eight of the 13 tests they played in 2018, they are coming into 2023 in far better shape than may have been expected 11 months earlier.

The previous time Argentina hosted the All Blacks, which was in 2019, they suffered a sad loss by a score of 20-16. New Zealand have lost two of their last six matches against Argentina, but the four victories were all accompanied by winning margins of at least 23 points.

This should prove to be a really entertaining competition, with both teams having a good chance of winning. However, the New Zealand team has the advantage in this match, and the All Stars are the superior team. Despite the fact that Argentina plays at home, their team is not very outstanding, and their performance thus far into this tournament has been terrible. Therefore, despite the fact that New Zealand will be missing a lot of their best players for this match, I do not anticipate that the Argentina Pumas will pull off an upset here.

Also, taking into account how the outcomes of prior matches have played out, this should be a match with a lot of points, with the Pumas potentially scoring up to 12 points and the All Stars racking up 30 points or more.