What strange outcomes! Scotland v Italy and Argentina v Ireland: two matches with an almost identical patterns and quite different qualities. If I was asked to describe the winners’ game-plans I’d be forced to say they were the same. Simply put it could be described as 10-man rugby; dominate in the set pieces, play in your opponent’s half and always take the opportunities to score that are offered. Never mind that both winners had good to excellent backs on the field these were forward-centric performances. An yet, and yet… Scotland seemed completely uncomfortable with their role. They presented what has to have been some of the flattest, least interesting periods of play I’ve seen in a long time to the extent that there was a sense that the players were embarrassed by it all. They did it and they did it fairly well against an opposition which lacked class and won on the back of penalties. It was an important but, I would have thought, totally unsatisfying win.

Argentina, on the other hand, revelled in their game-plan. Indeed, they brought a whole new meaning to the term. No only did they squeeze the life out of an opposition which, on paper at least, was dripping with class, but who on the day showed it only in a couple of flashes but they enjoyed it. And their enjoyment showed. Their pleasure when the final whistle sounded was palpable.

And then there was Fiji v Wales. What a match! It had the proverbial everything: thrilling running rugby, crunching tackles, wonderful hand skills, on both sides it has to be said, support play to die for and drama of the highest. Oh, yes, and the so-called underdogs won. What more could you ask for? Well, very little is the answer.

But hang on a minute. How exactly could a Fijian team with a non-functioning scrum - the sight of the rueful grin on the face of a Fijian prop after he had been comprehensively dumped stays in my memory - and a lineout reduced to taking the ball at the front and hence, according to the coaching manuals at least, sacrificing the possibility of quality ball to the backs do so well? (I have to mention here that for all their set-piece woes Fiji did produce one of the best - if not the best - rolling mauls of the tournament so far - and once was enough to panic the Welsh into
changing their defence pattern for the rest of the match and preparing for an attack tactic that never came.) Well, vast courage and enthusiasm at the breakdown producing a flood of fast, clean ball plus the ability to run straight into gaps had a lot to do with it.

The Welsh lost but they might have won. Their tries were no less exciting and their play in the loose was only a little less enthusiastic but they made too many mistakes, their timing was wrong and they succumbed to the idea that playing rugby was the objective. All that said it was a great match and it will sadden generations of Welshmen that their team was on the losing side.

Stellar performances this weekend? The Fijian midfield backs under Nicky Little’s leadership certainly qualify, the Argentinian forwards must be up there too - Ledesma’s grin told the entire story - but individually the top award has to go to Juan Martín Hernández, perhaps a little enhanced by the nightmare performance of his opposite number, I have to say, but stellar nevertheless. “If you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs…” Simply world-class.

Here’s how our players to watch fared:

Sébastien Chabal +1, +1, 0, 0
Brian Habana +3, +1, 0, +1
Frédéric Michalak 0, +3, +2, 0
Gordon Darcy +1, 0, 0, -3
Daniel Carter +1,+2, +1, 0
James Hook -2, +1, +1, +1
Victor Matfield +2, 0, +2, 0
Juan Martín Hernández +1, +2, 0, +5