Rugby World Cup 2023 LIVE: England v Argentina score and updates from third place play-off

And we’re off! Owen Farrell boots the ball into the Parisian night sky. Who will come third at this World Cup?

Kick-off is imminent. Fair play to the fans, the Stade de France is more or less full, even though this match is a largely pointless exercise. Hopefully it’s an open, exciting game.

The teams are out on the pitch and it’s time for the anthems. A long intro to the Argentine anthem before it’s belted out by the players.

And then God Save the King is fine. It’s never going to be a top-tier anthem, let’s face it.

The teams have just been announced here at the Stade de France and Owen Farrell got heavily jeered when his name was read out, presumably by the French fans in attendance.

Nothing like the jeering received by Eddie Jones during Australia games or referee Ben O’Keeffe ahead of the Argentina vs All Blacks semi-final, but still…

Here’s a reminder of how the teams line up.

England XV: 15. Marcus Smith, 14. Freddie Steward, 13. Joe Marchant, 12. Manu Tuilagi, 11. Henry Arundell, 10. Owen Farrell, 9. Ben Youngs; 1. Ellis Genge, 2. Theo Dan, 3. Will Stuart, 4. Maro Itoje, 5. Ollie Chessum, 6. Tom Curry, 7. Sam Underhill, 8. Ben Earl

Replacements: 16. Jamie George, 17. Bevan Rodd, 18. Dan Cole, 19. David Ribbans, 20. Lewis Ludlam, 21. Danny Care, 22. George Ford, 23. Ollie Lawrence

Argentina XV: 15. Juan Cruz Mallia, 14. Emiliano Boffelli, 13. Lucio Cinti, 12. Jeronimo de la Fuente, 11. Mateo Carreras, 10. Santiago Carreras. 9. Tomas Cubelli; 1. Thomas Gallo, 2. Julian Montoya, 3. Francisco Gomez Kodela, 4. Guido Petti, 5. Pedro Rubiolo, 6. Juan Martin Gonzalez, 7. Marcos Kremer, 8. Facundo Isa

Replacements: 16. Agustin Creevy, 17. Joel Sclavi, 18. Eduardo Bello, 19. Matias Alemanno, 20. Rodrigo Bruni, 21. Lautaro Bazan Velez, 22. Nicolas Sanchez, 23. Matias Moroni

Here’s everything you need to know about the Australian:

Both teams are out on the Stade de France pitch going through their warm-ups. We’re a little over 15 minutes from kick-off so they’ll be heading back to the changing rooms soon.

It’s a special evening for Ben Youngs – England’s most-capped male player will get one final runout for his country to end a stellar international career.

One of rugby’s nicest men, as well as one hell of a scrum half, he deserves this send-off in Paris.

It was thought that Michael Cheika would be departing Argentina after this tournament, but the head coach’s comments this week suggest that he may yet retain the role.

“I have no idea if it is my last game and I don’t think about it,” Cheika said on Thursday. “We have a team of players, coaches and with the UAR (Argentine Rugby Union) we have a very good relationship. We only talk about the game, not about personal feelings. The focus is on the match and seeing how we finish higher in this Rugby World Cup.”

It’s the game that players don’t want to play, fans don’t want to watch and the media don’t want to cover. All of which begs the question, why does the Rugby World Cup third/fourth place play-off still exist? Answers on a postcard please.

Actually, the answer is fairly simple, of course. It follows the old adage that when you’re not sure why something counter-intuitive is happening in sport, the reason is always the same. Money.

Of the many ways that one could spend a Friday evening in Paris, competing in a third-place play-off would rank somewhere near the bottom, perhaps just above a night-time stumble into a particularly nasty section of the Seine. However much World Rugby dresses up what it insists on calling the bronze final, there is no escaping the fact that most players would, at this stage, rather be back at home with a bottle of beer, or enjoying some downtime with a verre de vin rouge in a Paris bistro.

“This is not the game you want to be playing in,” England assistant Richard Wigglesworth conceded this week. “You can be honest and say this isn’t the game that these two teams aimed to play in.”