Dissing Argentina

Why is everyone still so shocked by Argentina's success?

In what other sport is a talking point in tones of shock for days and days when the team in 6th place plays the team in 4th and comes up with a hard fought win?

Sure, you'd expect the higher placed team to win, especially when playing at home, that's why they're more highly ranked after all, but is it really a resounding shock? It does make the exclusion of Argentina from both the big annual competitions seem increasingly like prejudice. I understand it can take a while to work a new team in to the schedules - I'm not sure how far ahead they're planned out, but just continuously saying "No" is starting to sound like fear.

To finish off, kudos to the Georgians for fronting up so well. Argentina looked a bit tired - playing France on Friday then Georgia today was always going to be hard work, you have to wonder why the team was rotated more - the All Blacks have basically shifted just about everyone around for this weekend, but Loffreda must be relatively happy, despite the fatigue and the hard confrontation his team racked up the bonus point, a decent points difference and the like. Beat Ireland - a team they're now ahead of in the world rankings after all, so we might expect a win (without being shocked if they don't) - and they're looking at a likely semi-final match against South Africa, pretty good result really!