Bok battle looms in background as Porter and Ireland battle Pumas

Andrew Porter during an Ireland Rugby captain's run at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin on Thursday. Pic: David Fitzgerald/Sportsfile

It’s not so long since Ireland were accused of “arrogance”, of losing the run of themselves and anticipating a potential World Cup final against the Springboks, after a glorious night on the outskirts of Paris.

Eben Etzebeth, speaking five months after that Pool B epic, claimed that maybe a dozen of Andy Farrell’s side had shaken hands with him after it and made reference to meeting up again in the decider.

It’s a claim the Irish camp has always denied. No-one could accuse a stuttering Irish team of arrogance now, but there is a sense as they face Argentina this evening that lots of people have one eye on the Boks again.

The Pumas would be hopping mad at that.

Felipe Contepomi’s side has long been able to fuel a simmering rage at being overlooked, or shut out of rugby’s top-top circles, and they played with a point to prove on their last Dublin visit when shearing the Lions. Beware.

This opening November Nations Championship tie will ask plenty of Andy Farrell’s side. Argentina have come fully locked and loaded and yet, we’re sorry, but it was impossible to sit down this week with Andrew Porter and not talk about the Boks.

There was no just no point ignoring the elephant in the room.

Porter’s last game for Ireland? That traumatic 24-13 loss to South Africa this time last year when the home scrum was humiliated by five penalties and a penalty try that were only the tip of an iceberg that exposed the Irish well below the waterline.

The visitors had 12 scrums that day, Ireland actually infringed at ten of them. Porter and Paddy McCarthy were both sent to the sinbin for their parts in an imploding setpiece that surged through the bloodstream and infected all parts of their game.

Ireland’s scrum has suffered before and since.

England did a job on it four years ago, the All Blacks asserted real dominance in the 2023 World Cup quarter-final. France have had joy there more than once, while Wales and an Italian front row powered by Simone Ferrari have dominated recent-ish head-to-heads.

South Africa, though? That was a killer. Farrell backed his pack after that. He went as far as to say that their scrum had been world-class at times past, that it boasted a British and Irish Lions front row, and that the Boks had plenty of others cold there too.

Maybe all that is true but the first scrum on November 21st is, by a country mile, the most anticipated moment in Ireland’s entire window. Even Porter admits that he spent a good bit of injury rehab thinking about this kind of stuff.

“That's the great thing about sport: if you're lucky enough to keep playing you get another opportunity, another swing at it, and that's the way I look at it. Incredibly excited to face that challenge and that opportunity head on.

“But the cliché is you can't look too far ahead. It’s a huge game this week, next week, and then South Africa. But in all my time that I had off to think about a lot of things, I suppose I have been thinking about that one quite a lot. Incredibly excited for it.” 

Ireland have lost their last six by double digit scores games to the current Big Three of South Africa, New Zealand and France since Ciaran Frawley’s drop goal dramatics secured a win in Durban in the summer of 2024.

Changing that starts with the basics.

“Like, those are huge strengths of theirs,” he said. “So that's somewhere we've been working on and making great headway on. That's something we'll be really looking to test ourselves with this November.” 

Argentina don’t have the same class or depth of prop as in days of old, and their results have been poor in 2026, but they still bring elite-grade talent to the table around their pack and in the backline. This is a tricky opening tie for Ireland.

Hopefully not to tricky for Porter too.

Now 30, he is a vastly experienced and capable prop who has migrated back and forth across the front row but the Lions loosehead has had to contend with the perception that he can leak penalties at the setpiece at the Test grade in recent years.

Alan Quinlan is among those who have stood in his corner with the former Munster player speaking on Off The Ball of an “unfair narrative”. Retired props Mike Ross and Alex Corbisero are others to have defended him in the court of public opinion.

Some of his toughest days have been refereed by Englishmen. Luke Pearce and Christophe Ridley will take the Puma and Bok games this month. As for Porter himself, he seems to be carrying on regardless when it comes to the scrum.

“There's only so much you can change in it, and it obviously depends on who you're coming up against, and you obviously have to be adaptable to your opposition as well. But it doesn't change that much. It's just being smart with it.

“It's not trying to hit and go on every one, which I've been guilty of in the past, where you just want to get one up on your opposite number. But that's not what it's all about. It's about being a unit.”