It would have been nice to see one all-encompassing game of rugby in Lansdowne Road over the autumnal series, akin to some of the games in Twickenham or France, but the pitch took care of that. Televised around the world, it was both a disgrace and embarrassing, and, as they take shelter behind rain level statistics, no one should feel more ashamed than the IRFU. Gerry Thornley reports

The Irish management and team could do nothing more than play the conditions and, at the risk of getting drenched, hats off to them for that. Everybody involved can reflect on a job well done. A little piece of history is their reward, but even they were a little frustrated at not really being able to play the game they wanted to play.

If so, it was nothing compared to the Pumas' irritation. Their deep-thinking and quite intense coach, Marcelo Loffreda, was enraged over both the referee and the pitch, which he ruefully reckoned was the worst he'd ever seen the Pumas play on.

"You must do something with the pitch. It was terrible, for the players, for the spectators and for the TV. You can not play an expansive game. I have to admit that Ireland were in more control of these conditions. They kicked better than we did and our lineout was very bad. Ireland played very well," he conceded.

"I think Ireland were like fish in the water," Loffreda added. "But not us. We are earth animals."

Loffreda - literally - had a list of grievances over decisions which went against his team, which he pulled from his pocket. He possibly had a point when querying why Chris White initially ran five yards in pursuit of the play when Agustin Pichot took a quick tap soon after Ronan O'Gara had made it 13-7 before, after a few seconds and Pichot 20 metres upfield, he then called him back because he hadn't seen the tap being taken.

Overall though, while resilient as ever, the Pumas' ill-discipline contributed to their downfall, and they were guilty of a few cheap shots. Malcolm O'Kelly was raked near his bloodied, bruised and blackened right eye, while Mario Ledesma would have been sent off in some sports for sliding in knee first on a prostrate Gary Longwell.

Despite initial signs to the contrary, Longwell sustained no more than bruising to his left shoulder, and after reviewing the tape the Irish management decided not to cite. Fearful of generating bad blood with the World Cup a year away, that was understandable, but it again underlined the flaws in the disciplinary system that the onus is on opposing teams to cite.

"Conditions were always going to make it a forward-orientated game," admitted Irish coach Eddie O'Sullivan, "which might have been a concern given the stature of the Argentinian pack, so we spent a lot of time in the week concentrating on not letting them get their driving game going. We also had to practice our driving game.

"For that to happen our set-piece had to be top-notch. I'm delighted for Niallo (Niall O'Donovan) and the forwards. It was a very good performance in the scrum and a great performance in the lineout, and our driving game from the lineout was the platform that got us where we wanted to go.

"In the second-half we said we'd play the ball in the corners and drive them. A very simple gameplan, but probably the only one that was going to work in the conditions."

Using the phrase "world class" and Malcolm O'Kelly in the same breath are now valid. "I think Malcolm has fluctuated in performance for us over the last year or two and at times promised to deliver big games and maybe not delivered them, and other times had big games when not expected. But Malcolm is a world-class second-row, it's just about being world-class consistently and I'm delighted with his performances in the first half of the season," admitted the Irish coach.

"Now that he's had a clear run without injuries he's been outstanding in terms of his consistency and huge performances when the chips were down. And I suppose if he's going to make his mark as one of the great second-rows in Irish rugby he has to do that consistently. But that's well within his compass."

Of equalling the six-in-a-row record of Irish wins, achieved in the late 1960s, O'Sullivan said "it was a nice thing to have but I think it's a fair point that the last time Ireland won six games it was against Five Nations opposition and Australia.

"We won't take a lot out of it other than it was an interesting autumn because we had to play diverse teams in diverse conditions, and throughout I think we played a very sensible game of rugby. We ground out the results. Had we been loose or had we not been focused, I think we could have left a couple of those games behind."