Irish, Scots bid to save northern hemisphere World Cup honour

Saving northern hemisphere rugby's pride lies in the hands of two New Zealand-born coaches, Joe Schmidt and Vern Cotter, as the two final places for the World Cup semi-finals will be resolved later on Sunday.

Schmidt's Six Nations champions Ireland are up first against a rugged Argentina side in Cardiff before Cotter's vastly-improved Scots will take on perhaps the most impressive side so far at the tournament, Australia, at Twickenham.

They will both hope to fare better than Wales and France did on Saturday -- though the Welsh were magnificent in their 23-19 defeat to South Africa, the French were steam-rollered 62-13 by the ruthless defending champions New Zealand.

The Irish should have been going into the Pumas match on a high after seeing off France last weekend.
Instead they have been shorn of a third of their starting XV that day including the iconic captain Paul O'Connell and playmaker Johnny Sexton, both through injury, and the man of the match against the French, Sean O'Brien, who was fortunate to just get a week's ban for punching Pascal Pape in the opening exchanges of their game.

As a result of Sexton failing to recover fully from his groin injury, his understudy first at Leinster and then in the national set-up, Ian Madigan, steps in.

"It doesn't change the gameplan at all," said new skipper Jamie Heaslip on Saturday.

"You saw last week, after Johnny came off after 25 minutes, Ian stepped right in and did a great job.

"It's another chance for him (Madigan) to step up to the mark."

For assistant coach Simon Easterby, a former flanker for the Ireland team, there is no questioning 26-year-old Madigan's temperament.
"He's one of these guys who thrive on that environment as we saw last weekend," said Easterby.

Argentina's experienced prop Marcos Ayerza, one of the few remaining members of the side that reached the 2007 World Cup semi-finals, said he was anticipating a tough and uncompromising encounter.  

"A ferocious battle for sure," said the 32-year-old Leicester Tigers stalwart.

"Ireland has been an old rival of Argentina in the last World Cups.

"You always find their way of playing the game is similar to ours, the breakdown is important to the game, for the cover it is well structured.
"We are looking forward to a big battle and to ourselves having our best version of ourselves and really try to have a proper game to give it a shot."

Cotter's work with the Scots since he joined them from French Top 14 giants Clermont in May last year has been recognised by his Australia counterpart Michael Cheika.

Indeed his work has been such that they are unrecognisable from the disorganised team who caved in to Ireland on the final day of the Six Nations this year.

However, the Wallabies -- who will be without injured influential duo fullback Israel Folau and No8 David Pocock -- should still have enough in the tank at Twickenham to progress to a semi-final against the winners of the Irish and the Pumas match in Cardiff.

Cheika, though, says that his side will not be already looking ahead to the last four.

"It's a match that's going to be tough and painful, physical and difficult," said the 48-year-old coach.
"We don’t think we are complacent. Nobody was saying that about us (being favourites) many months ago and things aren't any different now.

"We're acutely aware that this is really important for our own journey as a team.

"I've seen a lot of the Scottish players saying they can win - and they can, they can."

Source: AFP