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Four Ireland talking points as they cling to a win over Argentina
By Liam Heagney at Aviva Stadium, Dublin
Friday’s Autumn Nations Series result in Dublin was ultimately as expected, an Ireland win by a close margin over an Argentina team very much improved under Felipe Contepomi.
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Andy Farrell’s teams have been in the habit of quickly bouncing back from a loss on his watch. This was the seventh occasion that a defeat was immediately followed by a win, a pattern stretching back to February 2021.
There were quibbles about the manner of the performance but the ugly 22-19 success against the Pumas was nonetheless impressive for the dogged fashion in which they refused to bend, getting their November back on track following last weekend’s disappointing 13-23 loss to New Zealand.
Their hope will be that this latest recovery will lead on to further wins versus Fiji and Australia to send Farrell, the 2025 British and Irish Lions boss, off on his sabbatical with a genuine smile rather than Friday’s grimace. Here are the RugbyPass Ireland talking points following their Argentine nail-biter:
Penalty avalanche
It says a lot about Ireland’s grit that they have managed to win two of their last three matches despite getting done on the penalty count – cumulatively conceding 37 penalties to 19 – and suffering an avalanche of 54 points from 18 kicks off the tee as a result.
In Durban 18 weeks ago, they conceded 11 penalties to eight, inviting South Africa to kick eight penalties for 24 points. Last week in Dublin, it was 13 penalties to five which allowed New Zealand to kick six penalties for 18 points.
Then on Friday night back at the Aviva it was 13 penalties to six, a tally that led to Argentina kicking four of the penalties for 12 points.
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Ireland still pipped the Springboks and the Pumas by one- and three-point margins either side of the 10-point loss to the All Blacks. But these excessive penalty numbers are not a good look for a team that historically gives up very few double digit concessions.
Of course, the game has been altered since July with the latest round of law updates. It was why Finlay Bealham was yellow carded for his 17th-minute croc roll on Joel Sclavi, but Ireland can’t blame all the indiscipline on it suddenly being ‘a new game’.
The 25th-minute obstruction from Ronan Kelleher and the push from James Lowe 24 minutes later were simply sloppy, needless concessions.
There were also avoidable technical offences, such as closing the gap at the lineout on 40 minutes and not driving straight at a 63rd-minute scrum, and that’s before we get into the list of offsides and no release breakdown calls.
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It’s time for Ireland to stop the rot and get off this naughty step.
A second too-long scoring blank
Aside from discipline, it’s fair to say that Ireland also have an attack intensity issue to investigate. It has gone under the radar that they are playing in this Autumn Nations Series without Mike Catt as their backs and attack coach.
He was the assistant that emboldened their creativity some years ago, helping to deliver back-to-back Six Nations titles and seeing them travel to France 2023 as one of the favourites to lift the trophy.
Opting to step away from the Test game, Catt has signed up for a Super Rugby Pacific stint with the Waratahs in Australia which was why he had his successor Andrew Goodman down in South Africa four months ago shadowing him before properly stepping into the role this November.
Goodman, a former Leinster and Crusaders assistant, worked with Samoa at last year’s World Cup, so he isn’t a Test level rookie, but it seems to have been a tricky settling in period these past few weeks running the backs and helping Farrell with attacking strategy.
It’s weird given the rich plaudits for the levels of Irish potency in recent years that they were held scoreless from the 43rd-minute against New Zealand and from the 33rd–minute versus Argentina. They are both extraordinarily long barren periods for a team you would not characterise as blunt.
Their threat was evident in the opening salvo where they ‘won’ the 10-minute period of the Matias Moroni yellow card 12-3 and were then only a Tadhg Beirne grounding away from another try shortly after the binned Argentine returned.
That was an impressive reminder that Farrell’s Ireland can still excitingly carve an opposition open, but these second-half blanks must be addressed.
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‘Chopper’ back to best
Josh van der Flier was back to his ‘chopper’ best versus the Pumas, the flanker credited with 24 tackles, the sort of influence that had him voted as the world’s best in 2022. But he also showed another side to his game as there were 14 carries.
His gain might have been limited to just 21 metres but those sort of repeat little wins were crucial in the heavy traffic where the dynamic Juan Martin Gonzalez was brutally effective with his frequent dominant hits. He was some nuisance!
Back to the Irish defence, though, which really was pivotal to them winning ugly. Ronan Kelleher and Caelan Doris, for instance, both made 18 tackles, and the rip effected by Garry Ringrose at the end of the first half was a superb intervention.
The midfielder’s critics will shine a light on how he slipped off tackling Juan Cruz Mallia at the start of the Argentine’s classy break from halfway to the tryline four minutes after the break.
But Ringrose wasn’t the only player at fault in a concession where brilliance won out. Just look at Mallia’s footwork to breeze past Mack Hansen. Sublime.
?? Juan Cruz-ed through the Ireland defence to score a try to keep Argentina in the game right up until the final whistle ???#Breitling #DefiningMoment @Breitling pic.twitter.com/g1BjTX3Kla
— Autumn Nations Series (@autumnnations) November 15, 2024
The Clarkson optimism
Farrell took a post-New Zealand loss shellacking in the Irish media for not using the series opener as the chance to look to the future in some areas of his team rather than roll out familiar faces with a view to them get back at the visitors 13 months after that classic – but lost – World Cup encounter.
The negative commentary didn’t radicalised the head coach’s thinking as he made just a single XV change for Argentina, Robbie Henshaw producing an impressive first half to very much justify his inclusion at the expense of Bundee Aki.
Farrell had admitted that some players were lucky to keep their place… and he wasn’t giving them a free pass post this second match of the series, claiming the improvement he wanted to see only came “in parts” and he also described Ireland as “lethargic”.
They definitely haven’t collectively clicked but one aspect that couldn’t be faulted, unlike last weekend, was the bench. Whereas multiple errors from replacements painfully wounded the team last weekend, there was more impact this time around.
With so much outside interest focused on the future, the 21-year-old Sam Prendergast demanded attention on his debut with his 62nd-minute introduction. However, we were more taken by the influence wielded by Thomas Clarkson, the 24-year-old debuting as sub tighthead.
His five-minute first-half cameo with Bealham in the sin bin augured well for his lengthier return on 53 minutes and his scrum penalty win 12 minutes later was quite the fillip for a rookie who should now start against Fiji to accelerate his experience.
Durable young Irish props are elusive, but Clarkson has given reason for optimism.
Sam Prendergast gets a huge ovation from the Aviva crowd as he comes on for his debut! ?
Watch all the action live on @tntsports.#TeamOfUs pic.twitter.com/b14DdjwS4V
— Irish Rugby (@IrishRugby) November 15, 2024
So does this victory push Ireland back to the top of the pile?
Ireland can’t stop the rot and get off the naughty step, at least not without massively impacting their performance levels even further. The way they constantly live on the offside line, more often off than on, combined with the way they cynically seal off at rucks is now beginning, at long last, to get pinged to a greater degree. There’s still a bit to go but at least the refs have made a start recently, any coincidence this is post Sexton…?!!
And while they’re at it, can the refs start dealing with their constant player moving prominently in the eye line of the kicker at every opportunity. It’s just poor sportsmanship!!!
Mate, I’m no fan of Ireland, but pretty much every international team is constantly off side.
If the refs were to officiate offsides strictly, there’d be 20-some offside penalties per team in every international test.
Instead, offside has become the new forward pass. If it doesn’t fly 30 degrees forward, it’s “flat”. The same with offside: it it’s not a yard and a half offside, it’s on side.
The refs are generally poor at catching even the most egregious offsides (especially Nika Amashukeli, I’ve noticed - he barely officiates offsides), so if the linesmen are asleep, the game can get wild. In those cases, it’s about which team notices this ref weakness first, and abuses it more.
But trust me, EVERY team is trying to get an advantage there if they can get away with it.
Yawn.