Nov 17,2024
Ireland boss Andy Farrell says he will give considered thought to selection for next weekend's meeting with Fiji, who have already beaten Wales in the Autumn Nations Series.
As part of the IRFU's 150th anniversary, Ireland have an extra November fixture with Joe Schmidt's Australia the visitors on Saturday week.
Speaking after Friday night's 22-19 victory over Argentina, where he handed debuts to prop Thomas Clarkson and out-half Sam Prendergast, Farrell indicated that picking a team to face Fiji, who beat Spain 33-19 yesterday, won't just be a case of looking at who hasn't featured so far.
The head coach made just one change to the starting XV from the side that lost to New Zealand, with Robbie Henshaw coming in as a straight swap.
Clarkson was new to the bench following injuries to Tadhg Furlong and Tom O'Toole, while replacement Ryan Baird lasted only three minutes before suffering a head injury.
Forwards Dave Heffernan, Cormac Izuchukwu, Cian Prendergast, Nick Timoney, and backs Stuart McCloskey and Calvin Nash are yet to feature in this window from Farrell's original 35-man squad.
"We'll see how the bodies fare up but we do need to have a think about how we roll on because Fiji are unbelievably dangerous as we saw last week against Wales," said Farrell (above), who will take a sabbatical after the Wallabies game to take charge of the British and Irish Lions.
"At the same time, so are Australia. Four games on the bounce, we've got to manage that realistically.
"We need to pick a side that's going to perform and what you don't do is give everyone a game that's been unfortunate not to play so far.
"If you're trying to work out how lads are going to cope at international level, you need to put good people around them to be able to judge them in the right manner, so there's a balance there."
Ireland bounced back from a disappointing 23-13 defeat to the All Blacks by scraping past the Pumas at Aviva Stadium.
Three tries, two conversions and a dropgoal in the opening 32 minutes had the hosts in command but they failed to score in the remaining 50 minutes.
The TV cameras picked up Farrell and his fellow coaches looking unhappy on more than one occasion.
"A few times they caught me doing that," he smiled. "They should have caught me a few more times doing that.
"I wasn't puzzled. We were flowing.
"[Near the end] we come off the top of a lineout way over the gainline with Jamie Osborne, Caelan [Doris] comes around the corner and we're way over the gainline again and we're through, then there's a lack of composure on the back of it.
"That's the frustrating thing because we did a lot of good, we just didn't convert it.
"Of course, good teams have a say in that but we need to be better in that regard.
"Look at the field position they had probably through lack of discipline giving them access and to be fair to Argentina, the access that they've had over the last six months in the opposition 22, their conversion rate has been outstanding, one of the best in world rugby.
"So how we kept them out is testament to us to be able to win that game."
Captain Doris (above) was happy with the win and in particular two defensive sets at the end of either half during which Argentina piled on the pressure but couldn't breach the line.
He said: "Yeah, it's pleasing that we were on the right side of the result, definitely.
"The nature of lads fronting up when they took us on around the fringes probably a little more than we expected.
"In the first half, they won a lot of those collisions and it was probably better in the second half but the fight from lads staying in, a double effort trying to make a mess of the breakdown and I think that was what got the ball back for us at the end and allowed us to get the win."
