Foley: Right performance will ensure right result

Anthony Foley believes Ireland are facing into their most important autumn international this Saturday yet is urging the Irish players not to worry about the result, despite the must-win nature of the Test against Argentina.

Anything less than victory over Los Pumas at the Aviva Stadium this weekend will relegate Declan Kidney’s side to the third tier of seeds for next month’s Rugby World Cup 2015 pool draw, and even that might not be enough to prevent Ireland falling out of the top eight in the world rankings.

Yet while the ramifications of a tough group in England in three years time go beyond 2015 and into the next World Cup cycle, Ireland defence coach Foley was yesterday preaching the mantra that by focusing on getting the performance right on Saturday afternoon, the right result will follow.

“Probably the biggest game I’ve been involved in, in an autumn series,” Foley said of the Argentina Test. We need to get our preparation right and not worry too much about it and if we can get the mentality right on the weekend we should be okay. I think if you start worrying about results you’ll miss what’s in front of you. I think we’ve concentrated on how to get a performance that revolves around training, and making sure our processes are in place, our scrum, our lineout, our attack, defence, our kick-chase, our kick-receipt, all the things that are very relevant to the game.”

Kidney looks set to resist the clamour to promote the uncapped stars of the 53-0 win over Fiji last Saturday.

Fly-half Paddy Jackson, inside centre Luke Marshall and hat-trick hero and wing Craig Gilroy all excelled in the non-cap international at Thomond Park. Yet while the only likely change to the side which lost 16-12 to South Africa is on the wing, with Andrew Trimble paying for a poor performance, it is probable that Fergus McFadden will take his place; Trimble dropping to the bench.

That would still leave plenty of youth on the bench with props Dave Kilcoyne and Michael Bent and flanker Iain Henderson keeping the places which earned them a debut cap against the Springboks but Kidney will not want to jettison the experience of players like Ronan O’Gara, Trimble and Eoin Reddan, valuable assets to come to Ireland’s aid if required.

Of the Ireland squad, all bar Jonny Sexton trained yesterday and Foley replied in the affirmative when asked if the Leinster fly-half was set to return to training tomorrow, the players being handed a down day today.

Foley acknowledged the visit of Argentina presented the Irish players with a very different set of problems.

“Different game. They’ve different strengths and they’ve obviously a very good functioning lineout, and they obviously have a very good scrum. So of course you have to challenge at set-piece time but you’re not going to get the same dividends out of it that you would have last week.

“So, they’ll be a different plan in place as to how we deal with them, probably akin to the South Africa game, where they have a lot of good physical runners, a lot of big ball-carriers in their back row and second row that come around corners and run hard.”