At a certain level, this game becomes more about matchups – good and bad – than an idea of form favourites or underdogs. There’s an old adage in boxing that “styles make fights” and I think it translates over to the elite levels of rugby too. In rugby, we can sometimes get trapped in triangular logic or rugby maths.
Essentially, if Team A blows Team C out of the water, whereas Team B only narrowly won or even lost to Team C you could, through triangular logic, assume that Team A should easily beat Team B. But then it doesn’t turn out like that on the day where Team B, for some reason, prove exceedingly difficult for Team A to deal with.
It’s like rock-paper-scissors.
Look at this year’s Rugby Championship as an example. New Zealand beat Australia out the gate, Australia beat South Africa twice with varying levels of ease so, triangular logic would dictate that New Zealand should have no issue putting South Africa away, right? The reality was that those two Springbok games were the two most difficult contests of New Zealand’s season (until last weekend) and they could easily have lost both.
The Springboks have a style of play that New Zealand found incredibly difficult to handle effectively. Australia’s style matches up well with the Springboks but it was a bad clash with what New Zealand do very well.
I have a feeling that Argentina could fall into the “bad matchup” category with Ireland based on a few of the things I’ve seen in their game. I think Andy Farrell thinks so too given the strength of the side he’s selected to start here. You might wonder why Ireland didn’t experiment with a few different names in the starting pack but I’m not sure if that would be advisable against this Argentina team if straight-up winning is your aim.
Yes, Argentina finished bottom of the rugby championship, bonus pointless and winless, but that’s where we can begin to apply triangular logic incorrectly. Yes, they were beaten by the Springboks, Wallabies and the All Blacks. Yes, I expect Ireland to do so too, but I have a feeling that it could be far from straightforward, even on the evidence of last week’s outstanding performance against the All Blacks.
This is a banana skin, make no mistake. A banana skin we could easily kick into the gutter, for sure, but one that could land us on our backs in the trying just as easily.
Los Pumas: 15. Emiliano Boffelli, 14. Mateo Carrerras, 13. Matías Moroni, 12. Jerónimo De La Fuente, 11. Lucio Cinti, 10. Santiago Carrerras, 9. Tomás Cubelli, 1. Thomas Gallo, 2. Julián Montoya (c), 3. Francisco Goméz Kodela, 4. Guido Petti, 5. Thomas Lavanini, 6. Santiago Grondora, 7. Marcos Kremer, 8. Pablo Matera
Replacements: 16. Facundo Bosch, 17. Ignacio Calles, 18. Eduardo Bello, 19. Lucas Paulos, 20. Facundo Isa, 21. Gonzalo Bertranou, 22. Nicolas Sanchez, 23. Facundo Cordero
Ireland are a team you’ve got to scheme for these days. It seems like, almost overnight, we’ve gone from a side that were wobbling badly in February and March to being a side that can dispatch anyone in our way. It’s probably not the reality, but it feels like the reality and, given that we’re in the era of feels over reals, I’m happy to indulge it for a few seconds.
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OK, now that’s out of the way, after last week’s game against the All Blacks and the week before against the All Blacks, how would I try to beat Ireland?
I would have three primary areas where I would focus my resources. I’ll talk about two of them on the Blood & Thunder Podcast but the first, and most important, factor to preventing Ireland from getting on a roll is attacking the Irish lineout/maul chance generation engine. I’ll cover that here in a bit of detail.
Japan couldn’t get near our lineout, New Zealand didn’t get a chance to attack our throw in the middle spaces of the field where they’d be safe from our maul drive and we hurt them over and over again as a result.
Argentina, unlike Japan and New Zealand, have gone with the guts of a four lock pack. I think their main point of interest will be disrupting the Irish lineout.
When we get clean lineout possession and an established maul threat, we are excellent at gaining ground efficiently through the lineout and then scoring tries off that possession. All three of our tries against New Zealand came from the lineout so it has to be a key defensive focus for Argentina.
Guido Petti is an outstanding, explosive counter-jumper, Thomas Lavanini is a long, sticky operator in the air, Marcos Kremer is of the same build and young Santiago Grondora is an excellent and well-drilled lifter and competitor when called upon. At around 6’6″ – that’s what he’s listed at for Exeter – he’s got the ability to give Los Pumas real options to attack Ireland all through the line. His lifting, something he showcased really well against Italy off the bench, will be a key point of difference because New Zealand’s general counter-lifting by their back row and lineout defence was pretty poor by their own high standards.
New Zealand went for a distinct role set choice in their starting back row in that they didn’t include a half-lock style player or a 4/6D Lock archetype. Primarily because they don’t have a guy like that on tour and haven’t been able to replace Jerome Kaino’s roleset since he moved on from test rugby. In Blackadder (heavy wing-forward), Savea (strike wing-forward) and Dalton Papali’i (heavy combo flanker with a defensive focus), New Zealand were set up to attack different things. All three of these players are suited to a mobile, transition heavy game but you give up a lot of subtle things at the lineout that can really hurt you against a side like Ireland.
Argentina, on the other hand, have gone for a lot of height, a lot of counter-jump explosivity and a lot of tight play experience in and around the set-piece/maul. New Zealand are obviously a very well drilled side at the maul, to the point where I felt they over-focused on staying on the ground to hit us with their scrum-bind maul defence.
It was effective – most of the time – but I felt Blackadder was often a passenger in these moments as his read and ability to adapt to where the pressure was coming from was more to do with Whitelock than anything else. I’m not even sure that Ireland are that imposing a team when it comes to the maul but if you don’t catch us with a unified drive, we’ll soak metres and launch directly through Kelleher, or run schemes off Van Der Flier’s swivel out pass.
The size that Argentina has brought will play into their high kick tendency game off Santiago Carreras that has seen him play the ball by hand only 55% and 50% of the time in the last two games against France and Italy. They won’t have any issue taking us on in a long kicking duel before going long and getting our lineout in their crosshairs.
The key for Argentina will be forcing Ryan deep into Ireland’s call structure through the quality of their contesting and lessening the impact of Kelleher around the field by putting him on the line in an environment where all the simple throwing lanes are clogged with hands.
Lineout calling under pressure and tactical variation are, in my opinion, a weakness in James Ryan’s game and if you can put the pressure on, there are results to be had.
Ireland will react in those situations – as we have done under O’Connell – by simplifying the scheme and backing our alt-jumper (that was Conan against New Zealand) to work behind cutouts and feints by Henderson and Ryan. Ryan has been our primary target in both games to date but Conan has buffed his lineout work more than I expected with Doris playing a hitter role off the lineout for much of his carrying. This allows Conan to work himself into better wide positions on phases two and three where he is arguably most effective. It also uses Doris’s acceleration and pop in the carry in a limited way, while taking care not to overload his engine, given his tackling responsibilities and offensive and defensive breakdown load.
When Conan is the target on a shortened scheme, Argentina will fancy that they can pressure the throw if it’s safe to gamble a pod in the air.
This is a hurried scheme with Ryan being a little slow on the connection to lift Conan combined with a sub-par throw. If you’re Argentina, I think there’s a lot of value in chasing after Ireland when we dip down to a five-man scheme like this with Doris and Van Der Flier in midfield.
Argentina don’t have to steal four or five throws – they just need to limit Ireland’s platform and pressure our reaction when we can’t use run schemes off the lineout on the front foot. What are Ireland like when we’re forced to kick on terms other than our own? We only kicked 5.8% of our possession against the All Blacks and looked great, but that was in an environment where the All Blacks got their overall strategy AND selection badly wrong.
If Argentina can exert pressure on our throwing and call structure, while avoiding the kind of indiscipline that cost them against France and pressuring our maul with their size, they could make this game very, very sticky.
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