Keenan hat-trick inspires six-try Ireland to emphatic win against Argentina

If taking each game as it comes is the North Star for every sportsman then it wasn’t easily visible approaching this opener to November’s international window. There has never been a time when Ireland and Argentina liked each other. Not in the era when their collisions were uncapped affairs – by Ireland – and certainly not when they were upgraded to full Test status. Mean and nasty World Cup meetings were sources of spice. But this was almost tame.

Next year’s World Cup in Australia provided the backdrop to this, with a decent chance of this pair meeting there in the knockout stages. If that comes to pass then Ireland will consider complacency their biggest enemy.

On the night that was dry and mild and with no wind to speak of – it was reasonable to expect a game where stoppages were not queuing up behind dropped balls. It was decent rugby. The scrum has been a source of discomfort across the board in Ireland. Not tonight.

If they were setting out their respective stalls then the home side declared a willingness to go through as many phases as it took to get some daylight. Sometimes it ended in darkness. The Pumas made a case for their ability to react to whatever was thrown at them, with Mateo Carreras their advocate in chief.

The game was only 11 minutes old when he sent an urgent message to his teammates that their hosts had left the back door unlocked and the diminutive Craig Casey guarding entry. It wasn’t so much an aerial contest to gather Tomás Albornoz’s crosskick as Carreras casually reaching a shelf Casey had only heard of. Madness. The same Puma thought he was in again a few minutes later when gathering a misdirected crosskick by Sam Prendergast, but the panic in the home crowd died as quickly as it had erupted.

In the meantime Ireland had begun to find entry points that worked. When allied to the broken field contributions of Robert Baloucoune – in stark contrast to his mate on the other side of the field, the heavily marked Mack Hansen – the Ulster player was having a whale of a time.

Gradually it began to take a toll on the Pumas who went through the horrors in the second quarter. They lost the captain Julián Montoya with a head injury. Before they could digest that centre Justo Piccardo was sent to the sin-bin for doing the natural thing to stop a rumbling Irish attack. Then the replacement hooker Leonel Oviedo went off on a health injury assessment, leading to the prospect of uncontested scrums until the replacement loosehead Mayco Vivas was declared good to hook.

As for the scoreboard, that had been transformed. It started with a brilliant interchange for Hugo Keenan to get the first of three tries. They were split in the sequence by Dan Sheehan getting over on the second wave of attack from a lineout in Argentina’s 22.

With Prendergast taking maximum return off the tee it left the Argentina coach Felipe Contepomi doing a patch-up job at half-time. His team were 21-5 down, with a hill to climb and no obvious equipment to give them a grip. Down the corridor Andy Farrell will have been demanding a quick end to the contest in the third quarter.

Two minutes into the second half the Ireland coach got what he wanted: Prendergast not only carved an opening for himself but had the gas to complete the job rather than look over his shoulder for support. Given the scrutiny of every aspect of his game – average athleticism almost as high on the list as weak defence – this must have been the most enjoyable canter of his career.

Before the hour mark Ireland had hit the Pumas for six, allowing the gate to the bench to be thrown open in a box-ticking exercise rather than any need for assistance. Rather it’s Contepomi, and his new coaching partners – Shaun Edwards and Mario Ledesma – with a battle on their hands over the next fortnight, and beyond. This was a country mile removed from what he needed.

Ireland will enjoy a job well done, knowing that an altogether tougher challenge is just around the corner.