Ireland’s Six Nations winners made more history in Argentina on Saturday night with a first ever series win against the Pumas.
Joe Schmidt’s side scored a 23-17 win in the second test in Tucuman after a first win on Argentinean soil in Resistencia a week earlier.
The tourists had trailed 10-9 at halftime as three Johnny Sexton penalties kept them in touch with the hosts.
But second half tries from Simon Zebo and Ian Madigan and a conversion each from Sexton and substitute Ian Madigan ensured an impressive win.
“We’ve achieved an opportunity where we broaden the group a little bit, we’ve found out a little bit about some of those players, some who’ve acquitted themselves really well and some others who’ve still got some work to do,” Schmidt said.
“That’s an achievement in itself. At the same time we know we have got a heck of a lot of work to do. There are some teams that will put us under a lot more pressure than that.
“I think again our set-piece probably saved us. We put them under scrum pressure a few times when they had great platforms, and when they did get that platform in the last play of the game we weren’t able to defend it when they did get the ball in their hands, which is massively disappointing.”
Ireland’s next games are in the autumn when they will play South Africa, Georgia and Australia in Dublin.
“We’ll have a bit of a rest now and dust ourselves off and try and approach the Guinness Series still with a bit of positivity, because it’s not that long ago that we were playing at the top of our game in the Six Nations,” Schmidt said.
“I thought today we had a really experienced spine in the team and we probably should have offered a little bit more continuity and it’s probably a disappointing performance by our standards.”
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