While much of the hype surrounded the latest World Cup ‘Pool of Death’ which featured Australia, Wales, England and Fiji, increasingly the evidence is suggesting that the highest class contest was in Pool C from which New Zealand’s All Blacks and Argentina’s Pumas emerged.
It lacked the drama of those do-or-die encounters at Twickenham admittedly because once the tournament favourites had confirmed that they would top the pool when they met on the opening weekend it was simply a case of them working their way through the tournament as efficiently as possible.
Just as the All Blacks had done the day before the Pumas took their turn to demonstrate how well they had done so as they swept European champions Ireland with relative ease yesterday.
From the earliest stages, when they built up a 17-0 lead with two high class tries finished by Matias Moroni and Juan Imhof, they were physically superior and sharper than opponents who were striving to become the first Irish side to get past the quarter-finals.
Ireland did show spirit, exemplified by the impact made by Luke Fitzgerald in scoring their first try and making their second for Jordi Murphy after replacing Tommy Bowe in the opening half.
However the way the Pumas handed the pressure when it was applied, scoring further tries from Joaquin Tuculet and Imhof again to run out 43-20 winners should only bolster their confidence ahead of next weekend’s meeting with the Wallabies and there are shades of the 2007 tournament in the way they are progressing on two counts.
It was at that tournament that they played the same opponents in their final match – that year’s third place play-off - as they had in their opening match, shocking France both times as they made their irrefutable case for inclusion in the Southern Hemisphere’s Rugby Championship by outlasting both the All Blacks and the Wallabies.
It was that year, too, that England, having been thrashed by South Africa in the pool stages, recovered well to meet the same Springboks in an extremely hard fought final.
Australia having struggled, against Wales and Scotland, to regain the sort of form that saw them sweep England side, it is far from inconceivable that this rounded Pumas side will face the All Blacks again in the final.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here