Ireland’s returning stars on their guard

A team to fear or rank outsiders in line for a hammering?

You can listen to either the Ireland camp or your bookmaker for those opposing views of an Argentina side set to return to the Aviva Stadium this evening for the opening Test of the 2018 Guinness Series but the reality seems certain to deliver a third way at the final whistle.

“Ireland 1/16 to demolish Argentina in Aviva Stadium,” one bookmaking firm announced yesterday afternoon, not long after captain Rory Best had issued a warning about the threats his side will face from the visiting Pumas.

Those are the odds of pretty hot favourites that befits the number two ranked side in the world welcoming a team seven places beneath them in the World Rugby pecking order.

Yet this Irish squad has plenty of reason to beware tonight’s opponents, and not just from past experience.

Argentina have been a thorn in the side of Ireland teams since they ended World Cup hopes in Lens in 1999. Also at Parc des Princes in 2007 and most recently, most pertinently for this current squad, in Cardiff three years ago in a quarter-final that marked the low point in Joe Schmidt’s tenure as head coach.

There have been lessons for Ireland since, not least three second-half tries they leaked when leading 20-0 last November in Dublin before securing a 28-19 victory, and the evidence from this summer’s Rugby Championship suggests that under new head coach Mario Ledesma, the Pumas’ old front-row warhorse, they have been re-energised.

Wins over Australia and South Africa have served fresh warning as has a sterling effort against the All Blacks and captain Best yesterday asked his players to take heed of Argentina’s potential to spoil the party.

“It is a warning that they can play rugby and, if you think you have them on their own line pinned — it’s happened a few times in the Rugby Championship — they will go the length of the field,” Best said.

“You talk traditionally about the big scrum and the big power game, but probably 2015 was a turning point, in my opinion, for them. At the 2007 World Cup, they played with flair and width but in 2015, on the big stage, that was the time when they really had young guys that are now big players in their squad who play with width, no fear — that’s the way they play.

“If you give them space to do that, like we did at the end of the game last year, they’ll make you pay. So, we’ve got to start well and it’s got to be an 80-minute performance.”

“Because if that game is tight and you get into injury time, you think you have them pinned back behind their own line before you know it, you could be behind your own posts looking down the barrel of a loss.

“That’s the sign of a good side.”

There are also elements that could cause concern for Ireland heading into this sell-out game. The absence of a first-choice full-back and scrum-half, last week’s trip to Chicago which split the squad between two training camps and the potential rustiness of returning Test starters Best and Sean O’Brien are all factors that could make this a far-from-simple exercise.

Yet while captain Best makes his first Test appearance since lifting the Six Nations trophy last March 17 at Twickenham and flanker O’Brien takes to the international stage having played his last game for Ireland against the same opposition 12 months ago, they join a powerhouse pack that will look to dominate at both the set-piece and on the gainline.

That Argentina, for so long renowned as master scrummagers, have struggled there in recent months is ironic, given Ledesma’s former life as a hooker and the overall feelgood vibe he has returned to Los Pumas and a potential weakness for Ireland to exploit as they re-engage with a trusted front row of Best, Cian Healy, and Tadhg Furlong and a dynamic, abrasive second row of Iain Henderson and James Ryan.

It is a pack that can provide a platform if scrum-half Kieran Marmion lives up to the confidence shown in him by Schmidt in the absence of the injured Conor Murray.

The head coach has been impressed by the Connacht No.9’s stints as a stand-in in the past, particularly against England in 2017 when the Irish denied Eddie Jones’s defending champions back-to-back Grand Slams in a famous Six Nations victory at the Aviva and Schmidt has given Marmion simple instructions this time around.

“I’m just looking for him to slot in, not to try too hard, not to try to play too individually,” Schmidt said. “Not that he would.

“So we just want that accuracy, that ability to make sure that we can get some tempo into our game.”

Tempo should not be a concern for Ireland this week given last week’s frustrations when it dropped in the first-half performance against Italy in Chicago. That may have been a much less experienced Irish selection but the message will have hit home to this week’s matchday squad every bit as forcefully as it was delivered at half-time in the Soldier Field dressing rooms.

Ireland picked up the pace and duly ran in six tries past a hapless Italian side.

Few will be expecting that sort of bombardment this evening but a stronger Ireland have the artillery to snuff out the greater threats posed by Argentina.