KEY POINTS:
The embarrassment for the IRB is acute. Here they are on their biggest day and the bastard child of world rugby is making a spectacle of himself.
Argentina, the team the IRB have spent years treating with contempt, are threatening to push on and win the World Cup
- or come close to it.
It is the worst-case scenario for the game's administrators. Sure, they will milk it now. They will spout some spurious nonsense about a measly pile of development cash they gave the Pumas being at the core of their success. The suits will be all smiles, basking in the success of the underdogs and conveniently forgetting that in recent years they have treated the Pumas with all the bile normally reserved for the taxman.
At the last World Cup, Argentina were asked to play their four games in less time than anyone else. This time round they again had to play midweek while the favoured sons, France and Ireland, were on weekend duty only.
But the greatest injustice venged upon the Pumas has been outside World Cup years when they have been repeatedly denied a seat at either the Six Nations or Tri Nations. For too long, Argentina have been labelled a round peg by the self-proclaimed square holes.
The Six Nations say the tournament would be presented with insurmountable logistic and commercial difficulties if tests had to be played in Buenos Aires. The Tri Nations say that with most of the Pumas based in Europe, player release would be an insurmountable problem with their show-piece competition locked into a July/August window.
It didn't matter that Argentina have beaten France in four of their past five games. Nor that they beat England at Twickenham last year or that it is only those with elephant memories who can remember the last time one of the Celts triumphed in South America. Argentina, as far as the IRB have been concerned, are not on the A-List.
And so far it has been all too easy for Argentina to be ignored. But not now. The Pumas deserve their place in the final four and their presence there will force the IRB to open their blind eye.
What that means is later next month, when the governing body meets to discuss the prospect of establishing an integrated season, they cannot fail.
If they do, they will have failed Argentina, for the Pumas' long-term future depends on the establishment of one unified test window.
With the bulk of the Argentinian squad based in Europe, they are permanently stuffed by the current set-up. Without a place in any regular competition, their only tests come in the June and November windows.
But many of the Pumas are senior players at French clubs and are frequently involved in the playoffs that overlap the June test programme.
Come November, when the Pumas normally play tests in Europe, some of the big clubs have a curious way of reminding key Argentinian players just who it is who pays their wages and that, with some big games on the cards, it might not be such a bad idea to skip the tests.
Hard evidence of such pressure being applied is in short supply but the IRB suspect it happens. The men running the game know that if they can re-arrange the season so inter-hemisphere test football is played in one uninterrupted block then Argentina can play every year against the best sides.
They also know, working backwards, if the Pumas are guaranteed access to their best players and field their best teams regularly, then they can be introduced into the Six Nations.
Some may debate the logic of such an alliance on the grounds of geography and also suggest that the Tri Nations is in dire need of some new blood.
The issue, though, is that the last update from the IRB revealed that they have given up trying to move the Six Nations and Tri Nations from their current slot in the calendar. That has been deemed too hard which means, with the Pumas players based in Europe, they will never be released for the Tri Nations.
All this, then, makes the November showdown one of the most critical in the history of the game. Rugby executives from around the world will be joined by broadcasters, sponsors, medics, player union representatives and just about everyone who has a stake in the game to discuss the way forward.
The final aim is to tidy the season so as it is condensed by removing one of the June or November windows and provide elite players with a minimum of 12 weeks when they are not required to play.
We have been here before, though. So much has been discussed and so little done. This is the last chance. The talks have to produce an outcome, put on the table some definitive scenarios that all parties can go away and ponder and then return in a few months and cast a vote.
For cash-strapped New Zealand, it's a critical decision, too. An integrated season will free up room to play more tests while also, hopefully, delivering a permanent pre-season window in which the players can adequately prepare.
"We made it very clear that the opportunity for the guys to condition at the beginning of this year was not just about Rugby World Cup," said New Zealand Rugby Union chief executive elect, Steve Tew. "It was about ensuring the longevity of our players and that is one of the things we will discuss in the forum in November.
"The whole game appreciates in both hemispheres that you can't keep your top guys playing continual rugby and producing their best form over and over again.
"There are other ways to give them that opportunity and one of them might be the establishment of an integrated season. We are hoping that all parties who come together in November will appreciate that.
"The issues are not easily resolved otherwise they would have been fixed years ago. We have been talking to our Sanzar partners and we have been talking with other people in Europe and they will continue. We don't have a preferred Option A or Option because we have to hear what all the preferred arguments are coming from the Northern Hemisphere."
This time the rugby world has to do more than listen - it has to act.
