Another visit to the team hotel. Another player thinking big. This time a big player thinking big, thinking the same thoughts as every player who has walked down the sweeping marble steps to the foyer, writes  Johnny WattersonIn Bordeaux.

For a side that is supposed to be bickering and mutinous, they have presented a consistent message from which no one has yet deviated. The team epistle is clear and yesterday as Paul O'Connell swept into the camera lights and fielded questions we wondered if there was a script stuck up on the wall in Eddie O'Sullivan's room where players would go each night to learn official party policy on the testy issue of how to beat Argentina.

Thinking big is believing Ireland can pull this off and at the same time knowing if they do it will be one of the most unlikely outcomes in the history of World Cup rugby.

Argentina, world-class chokers? On Sunday Ireland will ask them to be just that. The troubling aspect is this team know exactly what is going wrong but are at odds in explaining how to fix it.

"We're not playing well, that's what has gone wrong," was Paul O'Connell's less than complex answer to a simple question. But the secondrow continued. "Sometimes we have over-elaborated, we have struggled to play phases and that has put us under pressure and we have dropped balls."

O'Connell has dropped balls like he never has before, as have the rest of the pack to which O'Sullivan has remained steadfastly loyal. The backrow and secondrow looked vulnerable to change but the coach has remained devoted. Was that a surprise?

"I don't really know, it's not my job to pick the team," replied O'Connell a little irked at the inference there could have been rotation. "The lineout was a bit disappointing at times although France defended very well," he continued. "Other than that I thought we had played well, the scrum was excellent. I'd rather that I hadn't gone in the sinbin but none of us are happy with our performances at the moment so we all have to pick it up collectively."

The trying-too-hard theory has also been aired this week and, in truth, the players seem to be genuinely mystified. It has been suggested they look to Munster and how they built up wins on at least three occasions against the thrust of conventional thinking. It's a mindset change for which Leinster coach Michael Cheika would be heartily thankful.

Leinster players thinking like Munster do. Cool.

It has also been suggested they look to Ireland's comeback against France last year when, having gifted their hosts three soft tries to trail 43-3, they staged a valiant comeback in the second half.

But O'Connell is not one for crazy thinking. "We'll be trying to play a pressure game where we put phases together and see what happens, and we haven't been doing that. That's when teams come under pressure, when they're defending after six, seven or eight phases and you see little holes in teams' defences. That's when we need to start using Brian (O'Driscoll), Darce (Gordon D'Arcy) and Shaggy (Shane Horgan) and these guys. If we can start doing that this weekend, I think we're in with a chance."

Openside flanker David Wallace's view was uncannily similar.

"Basically, you have got to go toe-to-toe for the whole game and wear a team down before you get the tries. That's something we have got to work on and bring into the game on Sunday," he says. "We have got to put in the hard graft and make the hard yards before the game opens up."

The Irish game-face is on. It's a poker face with an element of bluff, hard to read. It's a team face that tells us to believe because that's all there is. It's now also a jaded face, and O'Connell's is no different. The big man's frustration occasionally surfaces. His forte is not long debates with journalists, it's punching holes in teams, shifting bodies, carrying ball. And even that has buckled somewhat.

"We're strong enough that there is a collective will there to put it right," he says.

As always, thinking big.