Wales slipped to a 55-23 defeat to New Zealand in the opening test of the Autumn Nations Series and face just as difficult a challenge against the Pumas this weekend. Pivac has identified Wales’ work off the ball as a key area to improve if they want to come out on top at the Principality Stadium this Saturday.
“We’ve been a lot more physical this week,” said the Wales head coach. “We want to be very physical up-front.
“That was Tuesday and again today, so we’ve got to make sure that we are ready for what’s coming. Clearly as a group we want to get a result every test match. At 22-16 and 29-23 after giving them a 17-point head start I thought we’d done well to work our way back into that game.
“It’s about being clinical and that you stay in the arm wrestle a bit longer than we did. Obviously, we had a couple of exits we didn’t execute which put us back under pressure.
“In doing so we released pressure on New Zealand. It’s more around our defensive work in our 22.
“We’ve spoken about that because it really wasn’t up to test match standard. The boys know that and hopefully with another week in camp we’ll be a lot better for that performance.”
Wales are full of respect for Argentina who beat England at Twickenham last Sunday, while the Pumas also emerged victorious against the All Blacks and Australia in the recent Rugby Championship. And Pivac admits they will have to take their game to another level if they are to get the better of Michael Cheika’s side.
“They’ve come off Rugby Championship wins over New Zealand and Australia and if you look at the last 18 months, they’ve knocked off a lot of good teams and England have just been added to that list,” said Pivac.
“We’ve got total respect for the Argentinians. They are a very big side, very physical and you know what they are doing now behind that forward pack is starting to pay dividends.
“They are scoring some good tries. They are going to be a handful we know that, and we need to improve immensely from last week.
“It’s amazing what you can do in a week.” Pivac has reshuffled his back-line after the defeat to New Zealand with Gloucester speedster Louis Rees-Zammit moving from the wing to full-back while the experienced Alex Cuthbert will make his first start of the season after recovering from injury.
Gareth Anscombe replaces Rhys Priestland in the number 10 shirt while up-front Dillon Lewis has got the nod to start at tight-head prop. Dan Lydiate has been handed the number six shirt with captain Justin Tipuric shifting back to his usual position of openside flanker.
“Last week we had the late withdrawal of Leigh Halfpenny,” said Pivac. “We trained with Gareth and Rhys covering that through the training session so that was the obvious way to go because of the training time they’d had there.
“This week Louis Rees-Zammit has been training at 15. It’s something we’ve been interested in looking at over time with a future in mind as well and a Rugby World Cup around the corner.
“With two established full-backs out we think it’s an opportunity in this series to have a look at him.”
Pivac was also hugely excited by Wales’ back-row with Lydiate, Tipuric, and Taulupe Faletau reunited to take on a formidable Argentinian loose forward trio.
Yes, they mentioned that as well a couple of times,” he said, “They are excited.
“There are a lot of test matches which have been played between those combinations, and a lot of experience there. It’s unfortunate for Tommy Reffell that he picked up a rib injury but certainly they are looking forward to getting out there and in a way righting some of the wrongs of last week because they weren’t entirely happy with the performance.
“It’s an opportunity for us before the Six Nations and then it’s into the World Cup. It’s really the last opportunity to give guys like Ben Carter and guys who have been on the fringes for a while more opportunity.
“If they are called upon in the Six Nations and Rugby World Cup they need to be exposed to this sort of test match and we think now is the time to give Ben another opportunity. It’s very much an opportunity to sort of tinker with things but we don’t want to stray too much. You’ll see the spine of the team is similar to last week.
“There have been a few changes but not too many and there will be the occasional change throughout the remaining two matches.”
