O'Sullivan pays tribute to Wood as player and leader

Ireland's gutsiness couldn't be faulted and no one epitomised their will to win more than Keith Wood, writes Gerry Thornley in Adelaide.

Eddie O'Sullivan had maintained that one mistake could decide this match but ultimately it was one moment of class which stood out like a beacon, from a player who had achieved something remarkable in even being here.

The dummy Wood sold at full tilt before his deft offload to Alan Quinlan for the game's solitary try was borne out of sheer footballing instinct.

Quinlan, to his credit, still had to go some to reach the line and fend off Ignacio Corleto's excellent covering tackle, but everybody in the ground bought that dummy.

It's doubtful whether Ireland could have won this match without their talismanic leader, and Wood's sheer presence on the pitch was, at times, the single biggest reason for believing they would dig themselves out of the hole they were in at the Adelaide Oval. His throwing-in was good, he was as fearlessly willing as ever to take the ball into contact (if not always making much imprint on the blue and white line) and, of course, on one occasion he showed the outhalves how to find a lengthy touch with one bounce.

In his absence from the post-match press conference, O'Sullivan played a glowing tribute to his captain. "I thought it was the performance of a great player and a captain. Cometh the hour, cometh the man, and I thought his performance today was outstanding. Not just his work around the field but his leadership. Keeping our heads was crucial out there and Keith was a big part of that. He's been there before in tight situations and having someone with his leadership was a great advantage today."

Yet even Wood will have been critical of his performance to a degree, for he was as guilty as anyone of turnovers. Indeed, pretty much all of them will be. The scrum held up pretty well for the most part, though it did concede three penalties; the locks did well in the lineouts and Paul O'Connell, especially, around the pitch, though both he and Malcolm O'Kelly were culpable for at least half a dozen of the 13 penalties conceded.

Quinlan made a lasting impression in the first quarter, culminating in the game's only try, and after his World Cup was cruelly ended, his presence, and that of a true openside, was sorely missed. Victor Costello ran hard, though didn't make as much yardage as he would have liked; David Humphreys was a little unsteady and Ronan O'Gara got the line moving much better, though he had more room to work with. Denis Hickie again looked Ireland's most dangerous back although it has to be said Girvan Dempsey is playing well and was as solid as a rock at full back.

"It was as physically tough out there in the forwards as we expected," admitted Reggie Corrigan. "I was quite happy with our performance in the scrums because that was Argentina's biggest weapon. Our lineout was a bit ropy in the first half but we got there in the second half, and all in all I think the forwards deserve huge credit."

Just before Corrigan's 57th-minute replacement, he had received treatment for an alleged eye gouging at a time in the match when the excellent Andre Watson was seeking to calm down the increasingly agitated front rows. Corrigan said: "With regards to the eye-gouging incident I don't want to make any comment."

"I think all the players would have felt fairly anxious with 20 minutes to go," said Hickie. "Ironically that's when we picked up the pace of our game a fair bit. You could feel the crowd getting behind us but it was a nervous kind of geeing us on as opposed to shouting and screaming with joy.

"When we got into their half, which we hadn't done in the second period up to that point, that kind of turned the game a little bit and in a small way we could relax a little bit and we kind of got into the game a bit more around that time."

It is of no consolation to Argentina that they can head home immediately. Had they won, they would have had to wait around for a week not knowing their fate. They do now.

"Yes," said Agustin Pichot when asked if they felt they could have won the game, "but we didn't. I feel gutted to be out of the World Cup. I have a lot of feelings. We lost, we could have won, but it doesn't matter. We are out now.

"We were never ahead in the crucial moments and I think we lost our composure in the last 15 minutes and we missed a couple of lineouts. They didn't do anything special, we just didn't do anything in the last ten or 12 minutes of the match, which is the crucial stage of the game."

"Ireland won the game because they made fewer mistakes than we did," added coach Marcelo Loffreda. "In the first half we didn't translate our superiority into points and in the second half we had problems in the lineout and that was possession that was very well used by Ireland. But the team worked very hard and a lot of effort was put into this tournament."

The last two players on the pitch were the veteran props Roberto Grau and Mauricio Reggiardo, embracing each other and no doubt in tears. For the Pumas, it is the end of an era. They are better than at least two of the quarter-finalists (Wales and Scotland or Fiji). Them's the breaks, and they didn't get many in this World Cup. But you sense it would be a good break to avoid them in four years' time all the same.