THE word miracle is derived from the old Latin word miraculum meaning something wonderful.

It is, I am told, a striking interposition of divine intervention by God in the universe by which the ordinary course and operation of nature is overruled, suspended or modified. Apparently we need one today to beat Argentina in the last match in Pool D. So I rang my old mate Pope Benedict XVI to see if I could ask for a favour.

"Benjo your worshipfulness, Franno here."

"How can I help you my son?"

"Ireland need a miracle today, anything you can do?"

"Not sure, my son. Besides there are more practicing Catholics in Argentina."

"Well, if Eddie pulls this one off he'll need to be canonised."

"I'm afraid, my son, for a canonisation you need two miracles."

"Well, he has already performed one."

"That being?"

"He has managed to extract a four-year contract worth 1.5 million before the World Cup . . . and all this from the meanest bunch of men in the western hemisphere. Now that's a f***ing miracle."

"Not bad. But before the congregation for the cause of saints can assess his heroic virtue and consider him for beatification, the second miracle has to be posthumous."

"It can be organised, could I have a confession in advance please?"

The buck stops with Eddie. He is purely responsible for his team's performance. There is no consistency in the side. There is no confidence emanating from any quarter inside his playing 15. There is none of his trademark organisation. The team are bereft of structure and tactical acumen. They are all empty vessels, carbon copies of the players they were in November 2006, with the soul, innate footballing ability and footballing blood sadly missing. Eddie doesn't do falling on his own sword and after the carnage of this World Cup it will be very tricky to nail this debacle on the coach. As difficult as trying to pick up mercury with a fork. That's not Freddie.

Everybody is where they want to be as the pool stages end. Everybody, that is, except us and nothing that he says or does at this stage will help his team. It was incumbent upon the natural leaders of this side . . . Paul O'Connell, Brian O'Driscoll, Simon Easterby and Ronan O'Gara . . . to initiate a spiritual resurgence because anything less would not be enough. Eight days is an inordinately short time to try and achieve this and events will conspire against them. It's very difficult to maintain equilibrium in a squad of 30 players. You have to bring them to the boil for the November series of internationals then take them back down to simmering as they go through their Heineken Cup and Magners League programmes. Then take the heat up again and make them peak for the Six Nations championship. Let them loose on easy time again for most of the summer while some of them go off on tour, and then suddenly crank it up again and get them to peak in September. They have singularly failed in this process and my instinct tells me that they will be humming for their Magners League programme in about three weeks' time.

They say if it is not broken, don't fix it. Conversely, if it is broken you have to fix it. The team has needed fixing for a good while but nothing has been done. The fact that Geordan Murphy is in the side today is merely a coincidence. The coach did not want him there and if Girvan Dempsey had been fit he would have started primarily because he has been Ireland's best player in the championship so far.

Dempsey is hardly Lady Chatterley's lover but it is symptomatic of the way that this team has performed that he is their stand-out player. Talented performer and sometime gun-slinger that he is, the Argentinians will torment Geordan Murphy today and he will find no space to demonstrate his talent. I would surmise that some of the reasons why Eddie even left him off the bench in the French game will come back to haunt him as the Argies run straight and hard at him.

The lineout was broken last week and no remedial action has been taken. I would suggest now that Easterby become our principal source of possession in the line, much the same as Julien Bonnaire was used so effectively by the French. Hopefully, this will be recognised and Ireland will manage to move him into the middle of the lineout and they will win simple lineout ball. Let's avoid complex throws to the back which are always very risky and are used particularly in our opponents' red-zone with a very low success rate.

Our back-row has also been broken. As with all members of this side, with the exception of Dempsey, not one single player has played anywhere even remotely near their recognised ability, but the back row have underperformed to the greatest degree.

Easterby was reasonably effective against the French but Wallace, yet again, was anonymous. If you look at all the good number sevens operating in this tournament you will see their names popping up in nearly every second play. When New Zealand played Scotland, how many times did you hear Richie McCaw's name? Wallace barely got a mention. So if the back row is broken how do we fix it? Quinlan is an option, as is Neil Best. In a game of this intensity and magnitude the real stand out omission is Keith Gleeson. I guarantee you today that the Argies will pick off six or seven turnovers at the contact zone primarily because there is simply nobody good enough to go in and secure the possession on the ground.

Our back-row today will be taught a lesson by Lucas Ostiglia, Juan Fernandez-Lobbe and Gonzalo Longo. This trio play with purpose. The outstanding Ostiglia is surely the most illegal player in the world and his ability to kill ball and release it a second before the referee decides to ping him is incredible. I am absolutely certain that they will dominate the game on the ground and that the concrete mixers in front of them, particularly Ladesma and Scelzo, will make significantly more tackles and slow downs than their green counterparts.

This game has already been won off the field.

No matter what Eddie O'Sullivan says to Paul Honiss, today's referee, in their pre-match interview, it won't be enough to sufficiently convince Honiss that he should penalise Argentina off the park. There are a couple of things that Argentina will do which will simply choke Ireland to death. Firstly, they will tackle low. That is how Argentina beat France, they tackled around the ankles every time. Ask Sebastian Chabal how far he got with a ball in hand. The Argies will stop our runners every time.

One of the more important things that they will analyse is not simply how to pressure, but where to pressure. No matter how deep in the pocket he stands, O'Gara will feel the heat and on a day when he needs to stand millimetres away from the gain line he could be the recipient of a fair bit of car-crash tackling. Argentina play a huge amount of keep ball. They engage in a technique called latching. Latching is when a ball carrier gets on the ball and goes into contact. He already has a teammate latching on to him so that when he is tackled on the gain line he is pushed over it and the ball is secured by the 'latcher'.

So Argentina will keep the ball and they will tackle. I am reminded of the comedy duo Hale and Pace who had characters called The Two Rons . . . nightclub bouncers who never let anyone in even though it was empty. The two Contepomis will do exactly the same. The true superstar that he is, Felipe Contepomi relishes the stuff that most rugby players would see as chores . . . chasing high balls, running back after kicks through and closing down space. Juan Hernandez . . . quite simply the best player in the tournament . . . will win this game for them. Ireland struggled against Georgia's 60-metre kicks for territory. This guy can kick it 10 metres more and as he did against France, he will attempt a field goal anytime he is in range.

If I was looking to see how many Irish players would get in to this Argentine side, only Horgan, O'Driscoll, Hickie and O'Connell would make it. Our quality seems to be based outside in the midfield and the outer channels but I am certain that they won't make any head way against these wreckers and stoppers and maybe an aerial cross-kicking bombardment on Horgan's wing would be the only way forward. Argentina are also playing at home . . . 10 of today's players are based in France, five of them being based in Paris and playing for Stade Francais. I can offer you no optimism but maybe Rudyard Kipling in his altered poem If.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you and make allowance for their doubting too If you can dream and not make dreams your master If you can think and not make thoughts your aim If you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same If we had beaten Georgia by four tries not less, we wouldn't be in this f***ing mess I had high hopes of winning 130 million in the euro millions superdraw last Friday. I won 9 which will be just about the scale of Ireland's play today.