Wales fly-half Dan Biggar says he has taken stock of the criticism levelled at him following defeat to Australia and admitted that it could be worse – he could be Wayne Rooney.
Biggar has described his country as a “goldfish bowl” after international rugby matches and insists he and his group have to ignore most of the hyperbole and keep a level head.
The 27-year-old wins his 50th Wales cap against Argentina in Cardiff on Saturday and he is determined to hit back with a victory.
“I am not on social media but, of course, you pick up little things and what people say in articles,” he said.
“But, for me, it’s just part and parcel of the game. The way I look at it, I’m in a great position. Imagine being someone like Wayne Rooney.
“Over the last three months and the press he has received; their disgusting treatment of one of England’s better players. If I think I’m having a tough time, just look at him.
“Living and playing in Wales can be very much a goldfish bowl. Sometimes, it can be nice to be outside of that and get on with your day-to-day life. I don’t take any notice of the criticism.
“It’s always easier to slow the tape down and criticise after the event. If everyone had gone out there and not tried (last Saturday) and rolled over, been lax and not hurt by it then fair enough. But it is not as if we weren’t trying.
“We were hugely disappointed. We’ve spoken very honestly about it but now it’s about focusing on Argentina, putting a better performance in, enjoying ourselves a bit more, and taking a little bit of pressure off ourselves.”
The two sides have met on 15 occasions before with Wales having won four of their last five games against Argentina. However, the hosts are currently on their worst run of results since the 2012-13 season having lost five successive Tests against all opponents.
Wales coach Rob Howley has made six changes for Saturday’s match including dropping Jamie Roberts to the bench and instead starting the centre pairing of Scott Williams and Jonathan Davies.
Sam Warburton, Alun Wyn Jones and Liam Williams all return to Wales’ XV after missing last weekend and Gethin Jenkins retains the captaincy.
Jenkins will become the world’s most capped front-row forward of all time as he makes his 133rd international appearance.
t has been a difficult week in camp for Wales but their head coach believes his selection shake up in the backline for this Test will be the right decision:
“There were a number of defensive errors in our game, and Jamie is defensive captain,” said Howley, who is in charge this season while Warren Gatland prepares for next summer’s Lions tour to New Zealand.
“So we made the decision that the standard of defence wasn’t good enough and we needed a reaction, so we made a change.
“You don’t look forward to dropping a player that experienced, but when you have the performance we did in that area, you have to make a change. Jamie understands that.
“In fairness to him, when we met the leadership group on Monday, he was the first player to put his hand up and said he made mistakes, so I expect a positive response if, and when, he is needed off the bench on Saturday.”
Argentina’s head coach Daniel Hourcade has made just three changes to the side that prevailed in Tokyo, in their most recent match when they swept aside Japan with a seven-try 54-20 victory.
Centre Juan Martin Hernandez, wing Ramiro Moyano and back-row Pablo Matera are replacing Jeronimo de la Fuente, Santiago Cordero and Tomas Lezana respectively.
Argentina’s last meeting with Wales in Cardiff was the home side’s record win over the Pumas, a 40-6 victory, but it’s fair to say that the Pumas have moved on greatly since that day in 2013 and are in good shape for their autumn Tests against Wales, Scotland and England.
Hourcade knows that their opponents will be smarting after their home loss and that they will be eager to atone on home soil:
“We are really motivated to face a hard team that have a lot of pressure after a bad game last week,” said the Pumas head coach.
“It’s not the best time to play them. We would prefer to face a Welsh team in a better moment, not after a thrashing.
“It was a tough day last time we played them. After that tour, we started as a new team and we’ve seen a huge development in the players since then.”
As a result of last weekend’s matches Argentina overtook Wales in World Rugby’s global standings, moving up to sixth place from ninth position and both sides know the importance of the rankings will heighten over the coming months:
“World rankings is a big motivation,” said Wales flanker Sam Warburton.
“We fell out of the top eight back in 2013, just before the pool draw for the World Cup, and we ended up in a really tough pool, so we want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
“Ideally we would be chasing a place in the top four but I don’t know how realistic that is after last week. But we certainly want to finish as high as possible ahead of the draw [for Japan 2019].”
Wales: 15 Leigh Halfpenny, 14 George North, 13 Jonathan Davies, 12 Scott Williams, 11 Liam Williams, 10 Dan Biggar, 9 Gareth Davies; 1 Gethin Jenkins (c), 2 Ken Owens, 3 Tomas Francis, 4 Luke Charteris, 5 Alun Wyn Jones, 6 Sam Warburton, 7 Justin Tipuric, 8 Ross Moriarty
Replacements: 16 Scott Baldwin, 17 Nicky Smith, 18 Samson Lee, 19 Cory Hill, 20 James King, 21 Lloyd Williams, 22 Gareth Anscombe, 23 Jamie Roberts.
Argentina: 15 Joaquín Tuculet, 14 Matias Moroni, 13 Matias Orlando, 12 Juan Martin Hernandez, 11 Ramiro Moyano, 10 Nicolas Sánchez, 9 Martin Landajo; 1 Lucas Noguera, 2 Agustin Creevy (c), 3 Ramiro Herrera, 4 Guido Petti, 5 Matias Alemanno, 6 Pablo Matera, 7 Javier Ortega Desio, 8 Facundo Isa.
Replacements: 16 Julian Montoya, 17 Santiago Garcia Botta, 18 Enrique Pieretto, 19 Leonardo Senatore, 20 Tomas Lezana, 21 Tomas Cubelli, 22 Santiago Gonzalez Iglesias, 23 Santiago Cordero.