Hugo Keenan hat-trick sees Ireland into the clear against disjointed Argentina

With about 10 minutes to go here, Ciarán Frawley kicked a penalty into the fifth row of the East Stand. The ball was snaffled by a young bucko in a tan jacket, who immediately stuffed it under his seat and acted the innocent when the ball boy came looking for it. What ball? Dunno about any ball, no siree ...

Now, he might have got away with it, except the ball boy had already lost one for the night. At the end of the first half, Sam Prendergast’s kick into the crowd had got swallowed up and the teenaged, blue-bibbed ball boy was forced to slope off chuntering away about the bad mannered yahoos of the East Stand.

Well, no more. The ball boy wasn’t having it this time. As he stood there glaring into the crowd, one of the stewards came marching down the sideline to back the lad up. Between the pair of them, they Gilbert-shamed the dose in the tan jacket into giving the ball back.

It was about as much drama as the game had seen all night. Truly, this was a test for all concerned. Ireland and Argentina conjured up the sort of stop-start night that told you these guys hadn’t played together for a while. Any time the teams got in a huddle, you wouldn’t have been surprised if they were telling each other their names.

Ireland were decent enough, Argentina were all over the place. A hat-trick for Hugo Keenan made the man of the match an easy call – he narrowly beat out the stadium DJ who cut off Sweet Caroline just before the oh-oh-ohs kicked in.

That said, it was Argentina who started the brightest, opening the scoring after 10 minutes. Carreras was the second smallest player on the pitch here. Standing all of 5ft 8in, he’s more barrel than beanpole and if you had him for first try, you didn’t have him fielding a crossfield kick for it.

But he’s the O’Connell Street spire compared to 5ft 5in Craig Casey, who was left defending the right side of the Ireland defence after a driving Argentina maul. Tomas Albernoz found Carreras with the ease of a schoolboy tossing an apple core into an open skip.

Casey wasn’t going to let that tell his night’s story though. Nobody picked him to defend crossfield kicks. Truth be told, nobody picked him to go burrowing on the floor winning turnovers either but that’s what he did in the very next play after the restart. It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight, etc.

You’d probably be overselling things to claim that turnover changed the course of the night. But there’s no denying the tide flowed more in the home side’s direction after it. The first Irish try came from a set piece move off it, Prendergast with the old Johnny Sexton wraparound to put Robert Baloucoune away.

There is speed. And then there is Baloucoune speed. His acceleration is like watching your phone connect to Wifi in a country hotel and leave the dodgy 5G in the dust. In the space of four or five steps, he was outside the Argentinian cover and feeding Mack Hansen. A rapid offload found Keenan hurtling through and Ireland were ahead.

That was Ireland’s night in a nutshell. They were untidy at times and maybe took a little while to feel their needle hit the groove. But this was the sort of Argentina performance that gave the Irish players plenty of chances to make up for their mistakes.

Prendergast put up a couple of wonky kicks in a row but not only was he not punished, he was given time and space to measure the next one and found the corner. Argentina’s lineout, creaking all night, coughed up again, leaving Prendergast to feed Hansen who found Keenan 15 metres out. The fullback should have had plenty to do from there but the tackles on him wouldn’t have grabbed dandelion fluff.

And so Ireland led 21-5 at the break. Even though they had barely played in the opening 10 minutes and were scruffy and disjointed for much of the last 10, they were probably a bit cranky at themselves for not being further ahead. Argentina, the brief flurry at the start of the game aside, offered very little beyond flailing arms and ill-discipline.

They picked up their first yellow card of the night just short of the break, as centre Justo Piccardo stopped Dan Sheehan after a quick tap. It meant that when Carreras went down injured after contesting the second-half kickoff, Argentina were effectively playing with 13 men. Little wonder that Prendergast was able to run in his first try for Ireland on the back of a simple dummy 45 metres from the line.

Game over, with most of the half still to go. Ireland ran in two more tries and kept the visitors to one of their own. The benches came in, there were yellow cards and HIAs and general scrum untidiness. It was unconvincing. But you do what you can to get through. Even the ball boy knows that.