England eventually made it, scraping home 13-9 after Wilkinson finally rediscovered his touch to convert Ben Youngs' 65th-minute try then land a lengthy penalty to open the key four-point gap.
Yet, remarkably, for a player whose extraordinary accuracy and concentration has inspired a whole generation of kickers, Wilkinson's tally for the night was three from eight, with several of the misses coming from shots he would normally land in his sleep.
England can count their blessings that Argentina were even worse. Fullback Martin Rodriguez and flyhalf Felipe Contepomi managed to miss six of their nine attempts, four of them coming crucially in the first half when they were in control.
Wilkinson, along with the 30,000 people watching in the indoor Otago Stadium, was bemused by what went on and even lost count of his wayward efforts.
"The difficulty was that I felt I was hitting the ball well and expecting to see it go where I wanted it to go," he said. "But when the ball moves a bit how do you correct something that didn't feel wrong?
"I didn't even know how many I missed. You can only focus on the bit you can control and today I felt really good."
The low lights, transparent roof, a series of white goalpost-resembling girders and the match ball were all suggested as possible factors for Wilkinson's baffling night but, as ever, the hero of the 2003 World Cup refused to look for excuses.
"I'm not going to apportion any kind of blame other than to myself," he said. "I'm the one kicking the ball. There was nothing out there that you haven't seen somewhere before.
"Yesterday I was at the stadium, went back to the training ground and this morning I was out there again. I didn't do anything differently.
"As a kicker you don't ever look and say 'I can't kick this.' I felt really good out there. You've got to look forward to the next one and say 'I'll get the next one, I'll get the next one,' and that's what happened in the end."
Captain Mike Tindall said Wilkinson's misses made the decision-making tough as Argentina began to lose their discipline later in the game, eventually giving away a total of 16 penalties to the 11 of England - who had prop Dan Cole sin binned as punishment for their persistent infringements.
"You've always got to trust your kicker, especially when it's Jonny Wilkinson," said Tindall. "If he wants a crack, he has a crack.
"But he said he just couldn't get the control on the ball so with some of those "on the edge" calls we went for the corners."
Manager Martin Johnson said he was thinking about replacing Wilkinson with Toby Flood but just when he was considering the move England edged ahead.
"Then you are better off with the guys who are in the flow so we let them finish it off," he said.
Rodriguez, who agricultural approach to goalkicking looks as if he is trying to smash through a wall, missed five of his seven, while the smoother-striking Contepomi was "two for one". "Most of the kicks from Martin and Jonny were long, difficult kicks," Contepomi said.
"Maybe the stands are a bit low and you have to aim at something different but the surface was perfect and of course there was no wind!"
Contepomi, Argentina's captain and driving force, went off after 21 minutes and is waiting to discover whether his injury is damaged cartilage or a cracked rib.