It would be a flawed approach to use what happened against them four years ago as

“It would be a flawed approach to use what happened against them four years ago as a key component in our motivation for this game,” said the Ireland captain of that day when the majority of his players left the field in tears “The disaster of Lens was that we didn’t play ourselves We had a poor game plan and we adhered to it. I would like to think we’ve moved on an awful lot since then.”As have Argentina, which makes this win-or-go-home tussle one of the hardest to call in the pool stages. Patience will the order of the day, not forgetting a hefty side-dish of muscle. “We have to keep our cool and not get ahead of ourselves,” their genius-in-residence, Brian O’Driscoll, said. “Argentina’s big strength is in their pack, particularly their scrummaging.

We have to lay out some plans to work around their strengths and get the ball away from the scrums as quickly as possible.”And there is this match in a nutshell. Keith Wood was a young man back then and is as aware as anyone what it would mean to exorcise a ghost that continues to haunt his onwardly mobile side.The 31-year-old is also aware, however, that qualification will not be earned simply with acts of vengeance. “As a group we feel hard done by,” McGeechan said.Cameron Nather, flown in as a replacement, joins a back row that does not have a specialist open side. The people here could not care less about such niceties: a capacity crowd of 81,000 is expected to watch the two European teams The level of support is astonishing.. ”Our main target has to be Fiji.” At the age of 30, Townsend is winning his 80th cap “You never know when France are on song. “We have the capacity to play well but sometimes we have problems.

Many teams are unpredictable and each game in a World Cup is different. France, scheduled to meet England in the semi-finals, will reveal their strongest hand against Scotland at the Telstra Stadium today. In the second row, Jerome Thion is preferred to Olivier Brouzet. With Imanol Harinordoquy at No 8, France have three line-out jumpers, an area where they consider Scotland particularly strong.Despite scoring more than 100 points in two matches, Les Bleus have not been entirely convincing, especially when conceding 29 points to Japan.”I don’t know why we’ve been erratic,” Fabien Galthi?the captain, said. The Scots had already been deprived of Andrew Mower to injury and his replacement, Cameron Mather, steps up against France.As for Townsend, McGeechan went out of his way to give him a vote of confidence “Gregor’s very focussed on his game. We’ve been working hard to try to make him a better player in certain areas and he’s taken it on board He’s enjoying his responsibilities.”.