Australia has finished in sixth place at the World Rugby U20 Championship following a rain-soaked 14-6 defeat to Argentina in Cape Town on Friday.
Only one try was scored at Athlone Stadium with both teams struggling on the saturated, boggy pitch - seemingly in worse condition than when Australia's pool match against Ireland at the same venue was cancelled ten days earlier.
Australia got the scoring started early with a penalty goal off the boot of flyhalf Harry McLaughlin-Phillips after only two minutes.
However, any hopes of an open, flowing contest were quickly extinguished by the pouring rain, with both sides struggling to move the ball and retain possession.
In the 21st minute, Australia outside centre Kadin Pritchard received a yellow card for head-on-head contact on his Argentinian opposite Tomas Medina, who was running an obstruction line without the ball.
Argentina soon made the most of the fortuitous decision and their one-man advantage, finding enough space on the right edge for winger Timoteo Silva to dive over, giving them a 5-3 lead.
It was a lead Argentina would maintain going into the half-time break, despite losing Medina to a yellow card for high contact, with McLaughlin-Phillips missing two penalty goal attempts for Australia.
In the 54th minute another TMO intervention saw Australia inside centre Jarrah McLeod receive a yellow card for head-on-head contact and Argentina kicked the penalty goal for an 8-3 lead.
Another yellow card followed two minutes later - this time to Argentina replacement forward Juan Penoucos - for a tip tackle on McLaughlin-Phillips.
The Australian flyhalf recovered to knock over a 60th minute penalty goal but Argentina replied in kind and led 11-6 in the 67th minute.
That lead grew to eight points with only three minutes left to play as Argentina helped themselves to another penalty goal, and ran down the clock to secure the result.
Australia U20 6 (PENS: McLaughlin-Phillips 2) def by Argentina U20 14 (TRIES: Silva; PENS: Di Lucca 3)
