Darcy planning to be fighting fit to face Pumas

Ireland centre is among Ireland’s walking wounded after the bruising New Zealand encounter.

AFTER SATURDAY’S DEFEAT to the All Blacks – albeit a heartening one – Gordon Darcy and his Ireland team-mates are turning their focus to the visit of Argentina this weekend.

The Leinster centre who won his 51st Ireland cap against New Zealand is hoping to shake off a calf injury and play against his former Leinster team-mate, Argentina’s Felipe Contepomi.

Darcy sat out training today but is hopeful of recovering, according to the IRFU website:

The calf took a knock early on and tightened up but our heads were up and it was not preventing me too much from performing my role with the team.

I think the same thing happened to Tommy (Bowe), but sometimes with a knock to the calf, it only really gets bad when you warm down or get cold, so there was very little chance of that happening in the game as it was played at such a good pace.

I will rest it up and let the medics look after it and hopefully it will come good over the next couple of days.

Argentina arrive in Dublin on the back of a 15-9 defeat to France in Montpellier and Darcy expects a real test as Lansdowne Rd:

Looking at their results, especially the French one at the weekend, it shows what a challenge we have next Sunday.

Argentina just always seem to make it especially hard to break them down and to run France so close on French soil is a good indicator of what they can bring to the Aviva Stadium.