Wednesday 29 August 2018 16:33, UK
After the weekend's Rugby Championship victories for New Zealand and Argentina, we take a look at some of the standout moments.
A passionate Argentina ended an eleven-match losing streak in the competition with their 32-19 victory over Rassie Erasmus' South Africa.
Steve Hansen's side started Round 2 by producing another head-turning second-half performance to rack up a 40-12 win over Australia.
Here's what jumped out at us after the matches...
Let's start with the work of Nicolás Sánchez and the inspirational performance that he delivered at the Estadio Malvinas Argentinas.
A fifth-minute penalty opened Sánchez's scoring account and the 29-year-old pressed on from there.
The fly-half finished the first half with a total of 17 points as he added three conversions, a try (more about that later) and a monster drop-goal to his early strike off the tee.
The confidence that the Los Pumas' play-maker showed, combined with their much-improved set piece, meant Argentina held their nerve in the second half to secure a key Rugby Championship win.
There is no doubt that the performance will have lifted the spirits of their fans and may well have given them expectations that an upswing in form is on the cards.
The only challenge for Mario Ledesma's side is that their next Rugby Championship stop is Nelson for a meeting with red-hot New Zealand.
Tries. For backs, and of course for wingers, tries are their bread and butter. But for some forwards five-pointers can often be rare commodities.
On Saturday at Eden Park, Owen Franks marked a century of appearances for New Zealand. The 30-year-old made his debut against Italy in 2009 and at the time was the third-youngest prop to be selected for the All Blacks.
Franks' scrummaging prowess is known around the world and his experience and durability make him a great asset on the international stage. But, there's just one thing that's missing from his international CV.
It was absent before his milestone match and it's still missing after it - a Test try.
As already mentioned, Sanchez's day at the office was impressive, but it did have one rather hairy moment...
With a 17-7 lead, he pounced on an offload from his outside centre and weaved his way over the line.
After deciding to cut in-field and make his own conversion easier, he added a flamboyant dive to finish off the try and the issue stemmed from that.
Needless to say, referee Angus Gardner had to refer the grounding to his TMO and the fly-half's heart must have been pounding when the slow-motion cameras showed just how close he was to being out of play!
This week's image of the round comes from New Zealand and we'll leave our very own James Gemmell to describe it.
Hit of the round is handed to Australia's Bernard Foley and it's a corker of a try-saver from the fly-half.
With 51 minutes on the clock New Zealand whipped the ball wide in determined fashion.
Once they hit the left wing, Waisake Naholo used his considerable power to brush off the attentions of Marika Koroibete and gave the offload to Jordie Barrett, who fixed his eyes on the line.
Now, J. Barrett is no slouch but neither is Foley. The Wallaby accelerated into the tackle and duly put the full-back off course.
It showed determination in spades and is certainly one for the fly-half's highlights reel, despite the match ending in defeat for Australia.
When you just about run out of superlatives to use about a player then you know that you've witnessed something noteworthy and we couldn't leave this Best of the Round without tipping a hat to Beauden Barrett.
In the words of his head coach, the fly-half is a "special player" and the worry for other nations will be the fact that Steve Hansen believes there's still plenty more to come.
"Beauden's not the finished article. I think he's still got a long way to go to be the player he's capable of being," Hansen said on the All Blacks' website.
"That's the exciting thing I think because he's already shown us how good he is but he can be even better yet."
Even better? Well, we'll all look forward to seeing that because 30 points and the skills that the 27-year-old showed at Eden Park weren't bad really, were they?!
