‘They’re proper proud and talented’: Joe McCarthy looks ahead to Argentina clash in Dublin

Ireland and Leinster lock talks family trips to the Aviva and big moments in his rugby education

Thu Nov 05 2026 - 19:00 • 5 MIN READ

Joe McCarthy has largely positive (if mixed) memories of his one previous meeting with Argentina at the Aviva Stadium two Novembers ago. When he scored Ireland’s third try just after the half-hour mark that day, it helped establish a 22-9 lead, but they didn’t score again and ended up hanging on by three points.

“Argentina have elusive players who can kind of beat you one-on-one,” says McCarthy. “We had them quite contained but they came back through a great try. At the end they made this massive line-break, and we ended up just getting over the line and winning by three points. We had a super tough last defensive set to keep them out because Argentina can just make things happen out of nothing and they’re a tough team that don’t really go away.”

Looking ahead to this Friday’s Nations Championship game at the Aviva (kick-off 8.10pm), McCarthy agrees Felipe Contepomi and his team would love to become the first Pumas side to beat Ireland in Dublin at the 12th attempt.

“They’re proper proud, and talented, so many talented players. They can put together the best string of phases in the world. We were just looking at a few stats on them, and when they beat New Zealand last they had 50 defenders beaten.

“Their footwork, speed, offloading – even in that Lions-Argentina game we saw that a few small errors can get them into the game, because they’re so dangerous. They’re quite a hard team to play against generally, because they’ve so many good athletes as well.”

McCarthy himself arrives at this game like a player who has summered and pre-seasoned well. In the recent Leinster-Munster clash, there was a strong case for making him man of the match after a vintage, physically imposing performance.

He was speaking to The Irish Times in the premium level suite, the Aviva Fan Studio, which the stadium sponsors are providing as a match day prize for groups of 11 supporters.

As a kid, he was brought to a few Ireland internationals along with his younger brothers Paddy and Andrew by Joe snr and his mother Paula, although more often it was for Leinster matches.

“You’d play Stradbrook [with Blackrock College] in the morning and you’d be buzzing for a Leinster game in the RDS or the Aviva afterwards. You’d play real hard in the morning and then you go to watch the game. Your whole Saturday revolved around rugby.”

The inclusion of families has been something Andy Farrell has accentuated since becoming head coach.

“Some of the best moments in camp are when you have a first cap and their family come in for the presentation, and especially when you’re doing the anthems and you lock eyes with your family.”

A favourite memory will always be his own debut, as a replacement against Australia in November 2022, not least because his uncle, Andrew Fogarty, from his mum’s Cashel clan, was also there.

“He actually doesn’t get to a lot of games but I loved that he got to my first cap. He was a powerlifter when I was younger. I love weights and I would always talk to him. He competed at European level and always had a great mindset in training.”

McCarthy also owes a huge debt to several coaches at Blackrock, where “everyone lives and breathes rugby”. It was there he first came under the influence of Séamus Toomey, now Irish rugby’s scrum guru.

When McCarthy badly tore his hamstring after leaving school, Toomey explained how he could come back even stronger over the course of a two-hour phone call.

McCarthy still sounds out Toomey for advice and does some additional one-on-one work with him.

And then at Trinity there was Tony Smeeth.

“He told me everything I know,” says McCarthy only half-jokingly. “Playing with Trinity, they want to play a fast brand [of rugby] and use your skill set and that improved my skills a lot.”

Leinster then developed McCarthy into the international and Lions lock he has since become, despite injury setbacks. After that debut against Australia in November 2022, his troublesome ankle issues required an operation which ruled him out of the ensuing Six Nations, before returning in time to earn a place in Ireland’s World Cup squad.

A foot issue cut short his Lions tour after just one half of the first Test and he also missed last year’s Autumn Nations Series. But at 25 he should be entering the prime of his career.

Half of McCarthy’s 26 caps have come at the Aviva, with Ireland’s record being 11 wins and two losses in those Tests. You get the distinct impression that McCarthy palpably feeds off the home crowd more than most.

“Sometimes you’re trying to block out the noise but you can really feel it when you’re defending your own line or something like that.

“You can hear it and get a proper lift, or if you make a good tackle or a line break and you hear them, it gives you goosebumps. It gives you a bit of extra energy and it’s something, as a team, especially in Ireland, we talk about it in every big game week.

“We talk about how we’re making the fans feel, what we can do to get them behind us, because when you’re proper performing together as a team, the fans are properly behind you. But maybe if our performance has lacked a bit, you can feel you’re losing them, which is fair enough.

“You have to give them something to get behind us.”

He recalls Ireland going to the corner and scoring in the third minute of the Triple Crown shoot-out against Scotland in their last game at the Aviva in March.

“The crowd was going crazy and we were going crazy when we scored. We made a good explosive start. Everyone on our team just ran in for a proper celebration because we could feel the energy off the crowd, and that makes us want to give that energy back to them.”

♦ To find out more and be in the chance to win the Aviva Fan Studio experience, visit aviva.ie/sponsorship/aviva-stadium/aviva-fan-studio/

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