Gatland's men show potential

Ireland being Ireland, they couldn't make it easy for us. Oh not, not them. So, instead of continuing an imperious performance for the last quarter, they had to lose their shape and invite a previously outplayed Argentina back into the game. Maybe it was a case of vertigo, for 32-3 Irish leads haven't exactly been commonplace in recent seasons.

Had Ireland continued in the same vein there would have been little to fault. Well-organised, well-prepared and focussed, they had read the Pumas like a book. All across the lines of contact, Argentina took a fair old barging and spent an hour on the back foot with scarcely a moment's respite.

Ireland saw off the perceived dangerman Octavio Bartolucci from the moment Andy Ward collared him in the fifth minute, and it was the same for the rest of the Puma's target runners as they were continually enveloped in an impenetrable midfield green wall. That was the foundation, with main hitman Kevin Maggs setting the benchmark.

Up front, the Irish pack put in the hits at scrum-time, attacked well off the line-outs and even mauled their way over for a try while often sending the Puma's attempted mauls back with interest. No less than the improved running game and creation of space out wide, the quickness of the ruck ball was a continuation of the work done in Australia.

The rise in Ireland's collective confidence as the match wore on was palpable, and Matt Mostyn was on the end of three good tries. Whatever is said about Mostyn's lack of Bishop-like relish for chasing box kicks or unanswered questions about his defence (though he pushed up well with the rest of them), a tally of eight tries in five performances for Ireland is hard to quibble with it. It was a shame that Justin Bishop still didn't have the confidence to take on Diego Albanese on the outside when he twice had first-half opportunities to do so. But otherwise it was another hardworking performance by the rightwinger.

Indeed, no-one played badly and most played well. And this in their first collective outing of the season to the less than inspiring backdrop of a crowd of 11,541. One of these days you sense this Irish team might give somebody a good hiding, and this could have been it.

So which act, the first hour or the last quarter, was the more real? Assuredly the first hour. Think about the reaction had the positions been reversed. A last quarter comeback would have been dismissed as an irrelevance after the game had it been lost, which was pretty much all Scotland managed against the same opposition a week earlier.

Afterwards, players reported that their legs had felt heavy, in part the result of the fitness work done in the last two weeks. Nonetheless, food for thought for Warren Gatland. "I was worried in the last 20 that there was a chance that the match was going to slip from us," admitted the Irish coach in a quite moment of reflection an hour after the game. "It was just that this was our first match together at this intensity, and players were lacking match fitness at this level. And we looked as though we still need to get a little bit fitter as a team too.

"We (the coaches) were delighted with the defence in the first 50 minutes. We pushed up and shut the space down, and in the second-half when they started to look dangerous it was because we were ball-watching a bit and got a bit flat-footed. It's not an area that we know we can't fix and improve on, and I think the more matches that we have together the fitter we'll get."

Gatland conceded that in a game like this 32-3 ahead ought to be closed out by "35-10 or something like that and that's the next level with the team that we have to take, to make sure that happens."

Ireland started to run the ball a bit too much against a team who could afford to swing from the hip. Having been so controlled until that juncture, Ireland had probably become a little dizzy collectively after twice striking from their own half in the third quarter. At least those tries showed how many more strings to their bow Ireland now have, compared to say a year or 18 months ago. Not so much in Mostyn's finishing abilities, but more in the creativity and pace which Dion O'Cuinneagain and Brian O'Driscoll have brought to the once pedestrian positions of number eight and outside centre.

Despite scoring four tries, Ireland missed a couple of opportunities. David Humphreys's radar went a little off-cue after a knock on the knee, as he missed five of his last six attempts, although Mostyn might have made the conversion angles a easier. In any case, the irony was that Ireland should have gone back to type and closed out the game with more patterned rugby. Instead, we had the sight of Tom Tierney tapping a penalty around the hour mark on the Irish 22 when a lineout cum maul deep inside the Puma half might have served Ireland's interests better. This was as much the fault of the captain and chief decision-makers, ie numbers eight, nine and 10.

How much this contributed to the Argentinian comeback is open to debate. In any case, Agustin Pichot and Rolando Martin wreaked havoc after coming off the bench (resolving those issues for Hector Mendez, though why the Puma coach ever had any doubts in the first place is amazing) against a more porous Irish side by then minus Maggs and fellow hitman Trevor Brennan.

Enter Eric Elwood and cue to some one-ruck rugby, O'Cuinneagain picking up off the base of an ever-stronger Irish scrum (again all the more so after Peter Clohessy reverted to tighthead) and Elwood finding a long touch off the recycle. In such a scenario, there was something comforting in having him there to help close out the match.

Scoring sequence: 2 mins Humphreys pen 3-0; 8 mins Humphreys pen 6-0; 16 mins Quesada pen 6-3; 27 mins Wood try 14-3; 36 mins Humphreys pen 17-3; 39 mins Mostyn try 22-3; 44 mins Mostyn try 27-3; 53 mins Mostyn try 32-3; 64 mins Martin try, Quesada con 3210; 68 mins Pichot try, Quesada con 32-17; 73 mins Pichot try, Quesada con 32-24.

Ireland : C O'Shea (London Irish); J Bishop (London Irish), B O'Driscoll (Blackrock College), K Maggs (Bath), M Mostyn (Galwegians); D Humphreys (Dungannon), T Tierney (Garyowen), P Clohessy (Young Munster), K Wood (Garyowen), P Wallace (Saracens), P Johns (Dungannon), J Davidson (Castres), T Brennan (St Mary's College), A Ward (Ballynahinch), D O'Cuinneagain (Ballymena, capt). Replacements: J Fitzpatrick (Dungannon) for Wallace (36 mins), M Mullins (Young Munster) for Maggs (54 mins), E Miller (Terenure College) for Brennan (59 mins), M O'Kelly (St Mary's College) for Johns (65 mins), E Elwood (Galwegians) for Humphreys (71 mins).

Argentina: M Contepomi; O Bartolucci, E Simone, L Arbizu, D Albanese; G Quesada, N Fernandez Miranda; R Grau, A Canalda, M Reggiardo, A Allub, I Fernandez Lobbe, S Phelan, G Longo, L Ostiglia. Replacements - F Contepomi for Simone (28 mins), M Scelzo for Reggiardo (half-time), R Martin for Phelan (47 mins), A Pichot for Fernandez Miranda (49 mins), I Corletto for Bartolucci (54 mins), F Diaz Alberdi for Grau (71 mins).

Referee: Derek Bevan (Wales).