‘They’re proper proud and talented’: Joe McCarthy looks ahead to Argentina clash in Dublin

Joe McCarthy has largely positive (if mixed) memories of his one previous meeting with Argentina at the Aviva Stadium two Novembers ago. When he scored Ireland’s third try just after the half-hour mark that day, it helped establish a 22-9 lead, but they didn’t score again and ended up hanging on by three points.

“Argentina have elusive players who can kind of beat you one-on-one,” says McCarthy. “We had them quite contained but they came back through a great try. At the end they made this massive line-break, and we ended up just getting over the line and winning by three points. We had a super tough last defensive set to keep them out because Argentina can just make things happen out of nothing and they’re a tough team that don’t really go away.”