Ireland v Argentina: Five takeaways as ‘outstanding’ Hugo Keenan shines to leave ‘harsh truth’ for Felipe Contepomi

Hugo Keenan helped himself to a hat-trick as Ireland ran in six tries to beat Argentina 42-12 at the Aviva Stadium, with Los Pumas’ set-piece and defence coming apart after a bright opening quarter.

Here’s our five takeaways from the game.

The top line

For the first quarter of an hour this resembled a proper Test match, with Argentina looking as though they’d learned something from Shaun Edwards, blitzing hard off the second and third man whilst Marcos Kremer and Juan Martín González knocked Irish carriers backwards. Behind them Tomás Albornoz pulled the strings, and when the Toulon maestro landed a brilliant left-footed cross-kick on Mateo Carreras in the corner on nine minutes, the Pumas’ travelling faithful had every reason to think this might be the night they finally won in Dublin. That was as good as it got.

Ireland found a way round every problem Los Pumas set them. Going round the edge of the rush for Keenan’s first try on 14 minutes started the rout, and from there they turned almost every visit to the Argentine 22 into seven points, wrapping up the bonus point a minute into the second half.

The harsh truth for Felipe Contepomi is that most of the damage was self-inflicted. The lineout was an unmitigated disaster, the defence off set-piece was dismal, with a man short at the back and defenders standing off mauls, and a restart that went out on the full was the very definition of a coach-killer. Yellow cards for Justo Piccardo and Efrain Elias then cost 14 points whilst they were in the bin. And here’s the crazy thing: Argentina won more turnovers than Ireland, seven to five, missed one fewer tackle and had 62 per cent of the ball after the break, but Ireland had 70 per cent of the territory in that half, so Los Pumas had plenty of possession and nowhere useful to take it.

Keenan was outstanding, carrying for 106 metres and making four clean breaks alongside his three tries, whilst Craig Casey ran the game quietly and sensibly at scrum-half for 54 minutes. After that opening burst, though, Ireland hardly had to get out of third gear, and Argentina have so much more than they showed tonight, which made it an incredibly frustrating evening for them.

Ireland’s half-backs

One of the big talking points going into this Test was Ireland’s half-back selection, with Munster’s Casey preferred to Jamison Gibson-Park and Sam Prendergast retained after coming back into form for Leinster. A word, first, for Casey, who was superb for his 54 minutes. What he did best of all was not overplay his hand; he gave Ireland quick, accurate service, kept clear options open for his backs and brought them into the game time and again. He wasn’t faultless, since Albornoz’s cross-kick went over him on the far side, where the height mismatch with Carreras left him turning to chase, but for control, front-foot rugby and bringing his runners in off his shoulder, Casey made the shirt his own tonight.

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Prendergast perhaps struggled a tad early doors, standing deep and passing slowly into the teeth of Argentina’s blitz, and both his handling and his kicking were tentative in that first ten minutes. On 14 minutes, though, he made the extra man to get round the edge of the rush, and Robert Baloucoune put a lovely pass inside for Keenan’s first try, and on 41 minutes he went through for a try of his own. Yes, Ireland’s back-row put him in some really good positions to play, but Casey’s control and Prendergast’s moments were more than enough on a night when Argentina simply gave too much away.

Ireland adapt

Key to this impressive Irish victory was the way the hosts adapted to the gaps and opportunities Argentina offered them. In the first half Ireland visited the 22 three times and scored three converted tries, whilst Argentina went in five times and came away with only five points, and that describes the game in one line. Argentina, with a powerful rolling maul and some really strong carrying, had the better of the early exchanges and the collisions, but Ireland took the scoreboard through the sheer efficiency of their red-zone work.

It was clear in those opening exchanges that Argentina could dominate the aerial contest, which stood at 6-2 to Los Pumas at the 20-minute mark, and with Prendergast’s early kicking tentative, Ireland, much to their credit, stopped kicking contestables to the Argentine back three. They kept the ball in hand and made Argentina tackle, moving their big men across the pitch to attack the weaker shoulders of smaller defenders such as Albornoz at 10 and Piccardo at 13, and every phase Ireland kept was another set of tackles for a side who hadn’t played a Test since early September and were working under a new defence coach. By 25 minutes the intensity had gone, the system had collapsed and the set piece was creaking.

Keenan’s hat-trick deserves its own mention. The first, on 14 minutes, finished the move that took Ireland round the edge of the blitz; on 29 minutes he finished brilliantly after Ireland stole Argentina’s ball on the Pumas’ own five-metre line; and on 49 minutes, after wonderful handling from Joe McCarthy and Ryan Baird in midfield, he ran a beautiful line under the posts to complete the set. It was a really impressive display from the British and Irish Lions full-back, who put Argentina to the sword without ever looking stretched.

Argentina’s defensive woes

One of the themes of this window’s build-up has been the noise around Edwards’ move to Argentina, after he said Steve Borthwick had turned down his offer to join England, yet on tonight’s evidence you might conclude that England and Borthwick dodged a bullet, as Argentina’s defence fell apart, in both system and intensity, under Irish pressure. Most worrying of all, the biggest failures came off set-piece, and that’s unforgivable, because set-piece defence is a system thing, the one part of the game a coach can drill during the week.

For the first 15 minutes Argentina looked something like an Edwards defence, with a hard blitz from the second and third man out and Bautista Delguy shooting in from 14, which pushed Prendergast deep and slowed Ireland’s passing along the back line. Then Ireland adapted, kicking less and getting big runners into controlled collision channels, and the Pumas’ line stopped staying square; the rushers came in at an angle, space opened up outside them and Ireland went round the edge for Keenan’s first try.

González and Kremer will have nightmares when they see the replay of Prendergast’s try. González was beaten on the inside shoulder, a cardinal sin at this level, and to compound matters Kremer, the double-team man outside him, grasped at thin air as the Irish 10 went through a hole that simply shouldn’t exist in a Test match.

It didn’t stop there. Off lineout ball, Argentina failed to defend a simple long throw to the back and a flip inside, which is a pure system error, and they stood off Ireland’s maul, leaving space down the narrow side for Baloucoune and Keenan to combine. Those things should never happen in elite rugby, and alongside the Pumas’ own lineout failures they show how far the basics of Argentina’s game had deserted them.

A lot of that rests at Edwards’ door. He only joined Argentina at the start of this month, so some will say he hasn’t had enough time, but set-piece defence is the one thing you can drill in a week, and that’s exactly where Argentina were found out.

Looking ahead

Contepomi spent the best years of his career in this city in a Leinster shirt, so a homecoming that ended like this will hurt, and it’s not the margin that will keep him awake tonight. He’ll be thinking about how quickly his side’s structures came apart once Ireland put them under pressure, and how a squad with this much talent showed so little of it.

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The fix starts at the lineout, because that’s where the chain began: lose your own throw and the ball goes to Ireland whilst your defence is still getting into shape, and Ireland, who helped themselves to six Pumas throws, punished it almost every time. Next comes the set-piece defence, where one man short at the back, the inside ball and standing off the maul are a week’s work on the training paddock, which is exactly the week Edwards now gets before Genoa. Tidy up the discipline, two yellow cards and a steady stream of penalties, and there’s plenty to build on, because whenever Albornoz, Santiago Chocobares and Carreras had the ball in their hands, Argentina looked capable of hurting anyone.

Ireland have the happier week, though not an entirely comfortable one. Prendergast had his moments and Casey was quietly excellent, which leaves Andy Farrell with a call at 10, either sticking with Prendergast for South Africa or giving Ciarán Frawley a start against Fiji. The bigger job is the kicking game. Ireland adapted well tonight by taking it out of the match once they were losing in the air, but that only worked because Argentina kept giving the ball back, and South Africa won’t; against the Springboks you can’t keep the ball in hand for 80 minutes, so Ireland have to compete in the air or they’ll spend long stretches in their own half, in a pressure cooker that has seen off plenty of teams over the years.

Fiji are at the Aviva next Saturday with South Africa a week later, whilst Argentina head to Genoa to face Italy before France in Paris.

READ MORE: Ireland v Argentina: Result, scorers, match stats, line-ups