November Internationals:
Ireland V Argentina (17 - 3) 22nd November 2008

Not a pretty performance but a perfect result.

What is the prognosis on the knee injury?

I had a scan on Monday and the doctors identified a grade 2 medial ligament injury. Normally this type of injury would take about 4 weeks to heal but I am really hoping that I will be ready to compete again in 2 weeks. My aim is to make it back for the Heineken cup game against Clermont.

What exactly happened?

I was tackling their prop any I twisted my knee then he came down over it.

Were you aware at the time that you were badly injured?

I knew that something was wrong. My leg felt cold and I felt like I had a dead leg but Donnacha was shouting at me to get back in the game I made another tackle and then the medics came on. They did some tests on the knee and knew that there was too much give in the knee gap so I had to go off.

David Wallace took a bad knock how is he doing?

Wally was tracking the ball and jumped to catch it, as he did the Argentinean also jumped, David was looking up and the Argentinean caught him with an elbow into the face, as he came down. David suffered from a whiplash type injury but he is fine now.

Were you happy with the Irish performance?

Yes; it was a sticky game. We are delighted to get the win we hadn’t beaten them for some time and it was important to us to get the win. We had to win to keep up where we want to be in World cup rankings. They are ranked higher than us so it was good to get the job done. Getting the result boosts the morale in the Irish camp and means that the lads will all be looking forward to getting back together again.

You have played Argentina a number of times in the last few years, are you becoming more aware of their tactics and the style of individual players?

We are aware of how they play. They have a couple of very dangerous players, Contepomi, Hernandez in particular. They play an attritional style of rugby, just keep trying to wear you down then when you make an error they use individual players to capitalise on your mistakes. It’s very important when playing them to stay patient and focused any mistakes you make will be punished.

You mentioned Contepomi and Hernadez did their absence make a different to the Irish team tactics?

We prepared for the game, and we knew Contepomi was injured and wouldn’t be playing but the first I became aware that Hernadez wasn’t playing was when we lined out for the national Anthem and I could see him in the crowd. Argentina were certainly less potent without them.

The match seemed to be very tense, lots of individual incidences during the game?

We have played them a number of times there are some personal grudges between players at this stage. Everybody gets stuck in and no one wants to back down.

Do you think the media has been very hard on the performance of the Irish team in this series?

When we lose, the media talk about performance, when we win, they talk about performance. No one seems to recognise the result. Performance is important but at the end of the day we just need/ want results. A string of good results bonds a team and helps build confidence within it, other teams find it harder to play against you. We want to put in a good performance but at the end of the day it’s all about results.

Jerry Flannery in conversation with USN