“I don’t think so,” he said.
All going well – and that isn’t something you would ever take for granted with Ireland at any World Cup – they will face Felipe Contepomi’s Pumas in a quarter-final in Brisbane on the last day of October in 2027, so this felt like an opportune test of any grand ambitions.
Argentina did just that early doors, they tested Ireland.
The opening try was a delicious and darting blow, out-half Tomas Albornoz popping a pinpoint crosskick over the 5’ 5” Craig Casey and into the breadbasket of Mateo Carreras.
The Pumas kept prowling, sniffing around for openings and finding one or two.
That was before Ireland found a grip and began to answer their head coach’s rhetorical question with the most emphatic of answers through three first-half tries.
Now look, Argentina were in dire straits by the break.
They had lost their captain Julian Montoya and Leonel Oviedo, his replacement as hooker, to HIAs and outside-centre Justo Piccardo to a yellow card as the pressure mounted.
There was an uncontested scrum at one point.
It was coming close to carnage even before the break, and the toll of a tough year pockmarked by iffy performances and poor results leaked into Argentina's body language and fed some desultory efforts on the restart.
The other caveat in all this was the space.
It was everywhere.
Enormous swathes of green grass for both sides to find.
This is not the sort of rugby we will see when Rassie Erasmus and his Springboks pitch up here in a fortnight’s time.
Any structure that had existed in the first-half dissipated more and more as the night wore on and both Farrell and Contepomi went through the usual process of emptying their benches.
Punters started flooding out with minutes to go.
Ireland were 30 points to the good, in fairness.
Take all that into account and maybe we should cut away the second 40 minutes entirely, like mould on a slice of bread, and just toast what Ireland did in that opening period when so much of their play was so good against....
