Los Pumas, the Wallabies and the Namibians all rolled into Adelaide yesterday, as the South Australia capital braces itself for a rugby invasion that will take over this city for one weekend, kick-started by a civic reception for all four teams competing at the Adelaide Oval.

The Australian Rugby Union have worked assiduously to exploit RWC 2003 as a gilt-edged opportunity to spread the rugby union gospel into uncharted territory such as South Australia, as well as traditional strongholds.

In hogging the media limelight, Eddie Jones and his Wallaby players have been giving virtually daily press conferences, and the marketing has been as proactive as you'd expect from such a go-ahead nation.

Yet it's ironic that Ireland have been here longer than anyone else, the hosts and holders included, and the thought occurred yesterday that the Wallabies are contributing to this promotional and marketing drive very much on their terms. Far from spending the week here, the Wallabies have made a quick, in-and-out raid from their hideaway training camp in Coffs Harbour.

The Argentinians were met by as many television crews as the Irish squad had been 48 hours before (perhaps because the Australian squad were due in a couple of hours later), if not by as many supporters. They looked a little weary on arrival in mid-afternoon from Sydney, where they had moved alongside Ireland atop pool A on 10 points after their 50-3 win over Romania on Wednesday night.

Commenting on the short recovery period between matches, even their coach, Marcelo Loffreda, toned down his previous sense of outrage: "It's strange, that's the word I would like to use . . . not unfair, but strange."

Asked whether Argentina will peak against Ireland on Sunday, the Pumas' coach said: "We cannot be sure of that. The way is to work really hard - everybody knows what they have to do. We think that we will improve, not only from the opening game, but the others we've played. I think we will have our best match this Sunday, I hope so."

In particular, Loffreda conceded that the Argentinian lineout, which has misfired badly against Australia and Romania, will need a lot of emergency repair work in the slim time available to them. However, given Mario Ledesma had a bad case of hooker's yips while throwing in during those games, the return of Federico Mendez (who was comparatively near-perfect against Romania) ought to provide more of a remedy than any work on the training ground.

Sunday's game kicks off at 8 p.m. local time in the Adelaide Oval, but because the clocks in most Australian states or territories go forward by an hour on Sunday morning, and those in Ireland go back by an hour, this means the game will start at 7.30 a.m. Irish time.