Paul O'Connell lamented his side's handling errors © PA

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Matches: Argentina 17 - 29 Ireland

Paul O'Connell has demanded improvements from his Ireland team-mates despite their 29-17 victory over Argentina on Saturday.

O'Connell, now the squad's most senior statesman after the retirement of Brian O'Driscoll, said Ireland were frustrated by handling errors and defensive frailties as they survived a lively evening in Resistencia.

"We didn't know we were going to be as inaccurate as we were. We put a lot of balls down and missed some tackles," said O'Connell.

"They had some very big men, some really good footwork and they put us under a lot of pressure and it kind of thrived off our mistakes, we were unlucky not to score a try early in the first-half. And 30 seconds later we were lucky not to concede a try.

"So that's kind of the way they play and we knew that but I suppose we were intent on trying to stop that and we didn't do that."

Ireland outscored the Pumas by three tries to two but were dealt a blow 16 minutes from time when fly-half Jonny Sexton was forced off with a leg injury.

O'Connell was further incensed by England's impressive performance in their narrow 20-15 loss to the All Blacks - a match they had been tipped to lose by a much heavier margin.

"You look at what England did going down to New Zealand putting in a big performance against them. That's what we needed to do and we didn't do that. This gives us something to work on now and something to review over the next few days and knowing Joe Schmidt it will be a very tough review and hopefully our performance will improve next week

"They put us under a lot of pressure, I think the result is great but the performance is disappointing."