IRELAND v ARGENTINA REACTION:NO DENIS Leamy, no Felipe Contepomi but the same old story. This may not be the main story of an afternoon's terrible rugby viewing but it is certainly an enticing subplot. Ireland and Argentina simply do not get along. There has been bad blood dating back, at least, to that miserable night in Lens nine years ago.
And it has progressively worsened. Irish captain Brian O'Driscoll refused to be drawn on the issue, instead referring to his team's refusal to be bullied in their own house.
Fine. But the Argentinian captain Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe seemed prepared to speak at length, until he was dragged away by the tourists' media man. It meant we only got half the story. Well, half one side of the story.
As Lobbe briefly explained, this was a tough pill to take but revenge, they feel, will be sought down the road. The Latin men don't easily forget. "I don't know, there are some players who like to talk too much. For us it is rugby. We are going to play Ireland again and it is going to be again physical and very aggressive."
So there is bad blood?
"We both play 110 per cent but don't worry, it was a tough game; they beat us this time. There is going to be revenge."
Those watching at home had to sit through a miserable game of ping pong (Declan Kidney blamed the ELVs for the death of the maul, in particular), but those close to freezing in Croke Park had two options; follow the play or watch the outbreaks of violence.
Man-of-the-match Ronan O'Gara and Argentina's veteran prop Rodrigo Roncero were constantly at each other. Roncero won most of the skirmishes but O'Gara took the overall war - stubbornly guiding Ireland to victory in the final quarter and even seeing Roncero dismissed to the sin bin.
Touch judge Rob Debney sealed his fate when informing referee Bryce Lawrence of their last off-the-ball scrap. He said O'Gara threw a "haymaker" but missed, while Roncero connected. Irish penalty.
Roncero ripped into Debney in Spanish and was yellow carded. "What did I say?" he protested.
The game was already lost but Argentina were disgusted with the decision, especially considering O'Gara avoided similar sanction when blindsiding Roncero at a first-half ruck. The angry visitors did a fair amount of physical damage in those final moments.
Coach Santiago Phelan wasn't happy. He saw the sporadic collapse of discipline throughout the 80 minutes as a needless flaw.
"We keep on improving our game. We're not so happy about our discipline because we think it was not the best in this game."
Lobbe and Phelan refused to hide behind refereeing decisions. The Kiwi interpretation around the tackle area came down against them. Maybe Lawrence warmed to the Irish players addressing him as "sir" rather than rugged hooker Mario Ledesma voicing his dissatisfaction with almost every call. Yet often the latter seemed to have valid claims waved away.
In the first half, Lawrence stopped the clock to let the injured Jerry Flannery, who is blocking the Argentine back line, receive assistance despite moments earlier waving play on when a Puma was similarly prone.
Ledesma: "When we have two guys on the floor, one a centre, you never stopped . . . "
Lawrence: "He (Flannery) is right where you are going . . . It's a call I have to make."
Or there was the referee's mantra as digs were landed after each ruck: "Don't get involved!"
"A lot of the time our forwards were clearly contesting the ball on our feet," said Lobbe of the ground battle. "Of course, after three, four, five seconds when you are on the ball there is a lot of pressure and sometimes you go down. But it is penalty before that.
"The referee is the guy who makes the call and we have to accept that. We didn't agree on all the decisions but he is there to do that. What can we do?"
Lobbe also rued the absence of Juan Martin Hernandez.
"You will understand how big a loss he was but I think Santiago Fernandez . . had an amazing game. He is only 21. He stood up and clearly took the game into his hands. Very proud of him but, of course, Juan is top class."
