Pumas primed for battle
The weekend battle was always likely to be a physically gruelling affair but the recent scalps collected by both camps makes the thought of losing all the more painful.
Ireland are sticking with the 15 that beat the Springboks and yesterday the Pumas did likewise after an amazing triumph on French soil.
"All of the players who helped beat France deserve to play against Ireland," said coach Marcelo Loffredo.
Former Bristol scrum-half Agustin Pichot leads a Pumas side containing 11 players based in France, including the skipper himself, Toulouse prop Omar Hasan, Castres hooker Mario Ledesma and Biarritz centre Federico Martin Aramburu.
One change has been forced upon Argentina on the bench, where uncapped Bourgoin forward Augusto Petrilli takes over from the injured Martin Schusterman.
Argentina are seeking their third win in seven attempts against Ireland, but they will encounter a home team eager to end their autumn series with another victory after successes against South Africa and the United States
Neither side, despite their headline achievements of the last couple of weeks, are resting on their laurels.
O'Sullivan applauded the win over South Africa but stressed it was just another brick in the wall. Pichot expressed similar sentiments yesterday.
"What the win over France did was to give the game a bit more of profile but it's still not a perfect world. We want more. We want to make the country proud of us, as it was when we beat Ireland in the 1999 World Cup.
"This is a new team, a young team and it was great to get a result like that against France after just a few training sessions together."
But Pichot sounded a word of caution.
"It's a complication to put us up so high because we beat France. Circumstances change from match to match and, I suppose, we adapted to those circumstances better than they did.
"I don't intend to take anything away from our win but we still have to go out on Saturday and prove ourselves all over again.
"Being realistic, we still believe Ireland are a better side than we are, just as we believed France were. Nothing has changed on the basis of one very good win. We have got to do things like that on a regular basis."
Pichot drooled at the prospects of playing for Argentina under a similar regime to the IRFU, whom he compared to England in the professionalism stakes.
"Irish rugby is very well set up, very professional and the problem for us is that there are also very many really good players. It has been getting better and better over the last five or six years."
On a personal level, the scrum-half is preparing for another duel with Peter Stringer, a player he admires.
"I've played against him four or five times - he is a very difficult opponent and cheeky like myself. He has a good relationship and partnership with O'Gara. It will be interesting. We found against France that we had to adapt to the way the game was going. Scrum-halves, being the link between forwards and backs, have to read what's going on, assess any given situation and react in a split second.
"We are the small guys on the two teams - I suppose there is probably no other position we could play in - but it's nice to have a small man accommodated. Guys like us are supposed to be able to run a game mentally, physically and sometimes you should just go with the flow. That's the way I look at it anyway.
"A scrum half always has to think a bit more than some other players because there could be two or three options and you always want to get the right one. Guys my size probably have no other place to play on the field so sometimes you might have to become a bully.
"That's what the big guys say about me but I think it's the same for all short men. When you're not physically big, you have to make yourself known. But the main thing about playing at number nine is that you have got to make decisions. Sometimes they work in your favour, sometimes they go wrong but it's all about taking responsibility."
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
