It has been a week of reflection for the Wales players and management following last weekend’s heavy defeat to New Zealand. Contrast that to Argentina who recorded a famous victory over England at Twickenham and the size of the challenge becomes apparent.
Wales conceded eight tries against the All Blacks and defence coach Jenkins has told his players they must solidify this area if they are to turn over the Pumas.
“We were very disappointed as a whole group, staff and management,” said the former Wales prop. “There’s no hiding from the fact we were in the way we played. We had a busy and quite emotional day on Monday picking the game apart to find out where we can get better.
“There were a lot of honest conversations around how we get better for this weekend. There is no point in us feeling sorry for ourselves.
“In terms of defence, they got into our 22 and scored seven tries. We conceded two offsides in the backs and one penalty on top of that. That paints a little bit of a picture of where we were and what we delivered as a team.
“There is a lot of frustration, but we’ve got another big Test match at the weekend and we just need to get better. Hopefully that hit out will put us in a better place physically.”
Jenkins is full of respect for Argentina who have thrived under the expert tutelage of former Australia coach Michael Cheika. He believes Wales will have to be at their very best to get one over a side who have beaten both the All Blacks and the Wallabies this year.
“They hardly touched the ball against England, yet still came away with a win,” said Jenkins. “That shows the quality they’ve got. It is going to be a very similar game to the ones we had with South Africa in the summer.
“They are that type of team that kicks a lot of ball. They have some very neat plays and a big influence from some of their coaches that we all know about.
“They are a bit of a mixed back, but another big challenge for us. They are very comfortable defending.
“The win they had against New Zealand, they seemed to be defending most of that game, so they are comfortably at getting up and making physical tackles, and they looked like they were comfortable on Sunday against England in terms of defending what England threw at them.
“We can’t play loose against them.” Jenkins also confirmed full-back Leigh Halfpenny and flanker Tommy Reffell will be unavailable for this Saturday’s game but in better news wings Alex Cuthbert and Josh Adams have returned to full training.
“Leigh is not going to be available this week, and Tommy won’t be available,” said Jenkins. “They are the only two, I think, at the moment that are fully ruled out for the weekend.
“They’re (Cuthbert and Adams) back training today. They’re back involved with stuff.
“Well, Alex trained last week but it was his first week for a long time so that’s the reason he wasn’t involved. We needed to ease him back into it.”
