Wales take on another of the Rugby Championship teams at the Principality Stadium on Saturday and the 84 times capped Roberts says the 32-8 loss to the Wallabies will bring the squad closer together.
“It’s certainly a kick up the backside for us and when we go into training on Monday we’ll have to address the issues. It has to galvanize us. We’ve been there before, a lot of us have been there before – it was a bad day at the office for us and it happens in rugby, it happens in sport,” said Roberts.
“It’s hard to put my finger on it, I’m searching for answers. We have to look at the video and be honest and up front on Monday – it’s frustrating. We just got beaten on the gain line and that’s rugby ultimately.
“The guys have dusted themselves off quickly. We’ll come into training on Monday and we’ll go again this weekend. We’ve got to learn from it and I think the main thing to learn from this is to slow their speed of ball.
“Argentina love to play. I watched them against Australia a few weeks back and they’ll play from their own half and they have big carriers and are a physical side.
“What we didn’t do against Australia we will have to do this week, and that’s stop their momentum. If we don’t, it will be a long day at the office.
“Rugby is about momentum, it’s about speed of ball, and we just didn’t win that battle against Australia. They played some good stuff in attack and caused us problems, along with some poor defensive reads from us.
“Argentina will pose a similar threat with a lot of pace out wide. If we allow them to get momentum, speed of ball and space in the game it will be another tough day.”
Roberts missed out on a 48th start in the midfield with regular partner Jonathan Davies when the Scarlets centre was withdrawn with a tight hamstring. His place was taken by clubmate Scott Williams, who scored the only Welsh try against the Aussies.
Davies is due to return this weekend and also coming into the selection mix will be Sam Warburton after he helped Cardiff Blues win in Benetton Treviso on Friday night. Wales coach Rob Howley will also monitor the fitness of Liam Williams, Taulupe Faletau and Alun Wyn Jones this week.
“It’s been quite a seamless shift from Warren Gatland to Rob Howley,” explained Roberts. “It’s obviously different not having Warren there, but a lot of the coaching staff are very similar, they’ve been there for a long time and a lot of the players are familiar with that.
“It’s just disappointing. You’d like to blame a lot of different things for a result like that, but there’s no point being too complicated about it, they beat us.
“The speed of ball and certainly with the possession in the first half they blew us away. You can dress it up all you want but we lost the gain line battle.
“We’ve looked to adapt our game a bit, but it was tough to show it because we didn’t have the ball. Matt Sherratt has come in and is doing a good job, the lads are buying into his stuff.
“We’re trying to tweak a few things and play in a different way, but we have to have the ball to do that first and our possession was poor. We lost the aerial battle and certainly turned over a few balls as well which was disappointing.”
