Argentina 15 Classic Lions 5 Argentinian intelligence tore the heart out of the Lions as the holders were upset in the semi-finals of the World Rugby Classic on Saturday.

Pumas captain Rafael Madero revealed afterwards that his team, beaten by the Lions at the same stage last year and in 1997's final, had put emotions aside and played a game with more tactical nous to clinch a hard-fought victory.

"We have a stronger team this year and we tried to play with the head and not the heart,'' Madero said. "Last year we tried to play with our hearts and we made a lot of mistakes. This time we aimed to use the head and put the ball in Lions territory.

"The Lions are a very good team with tremendous experience so we tried to keep up the pressure. We tried to move the ball when we could. But we're happy that we played very well, with hard defence.'' That defence kept Argentina in the game after the Lions took up residence in their opponents' half after a brief foray foward by the South Americans at the start.

But it became more a game for the technicians amongst the spectators, in truth a turgid affair, with precious little running rugby to excite most of those in the Nationals crowd.

Argentina held firm as first Lions wing Keith Crossan threatened to go over after long passes from captain Jonathan Griffiths and David Lyons, but ultimately his route into the corner was blocked and he was forced to pass back inside and the chance was lost.

Then Griffiths himself was tackled as he looked to pick out Crossan after the ball had come out from a Lions scrum just inside the Pumas' 22-metre line.

Madero was called upon several times to relieve the pressure with kicks into touch.

The Lions missed a good opportunity after former Wigan rugby league star Jonathan Davies found touch just four metres out with a penalty, but the throw from the resulting line-out was not delivered straight.

And Argentina ensured the teams would go in scoreless at the break when they repelled a good run by former Welsh prop Jeremy Pugh on the stroke of the interval.

It was six minutes into the second period when the deadlock was finally broken as the Argentinian backs moved the ball well from left to right and found an extra man in wing Pedro Lanza who went over to give them a five point advanatage.

Argentina went further ahead 12 minutes later when a disastrous pass in defence fell straight to flanker Fernando Conti about 12 metres out and he delightedly accepted the offering to make it 10-0. Madero converted to make it 12-0.

Crossan almost replied on the Lions left but he was bundled into touch a metre short.

And when Argentina won a penalty 25 metres out and facing the posts, Madero decided to kick it, despite boos from a section of the crowd, to make it 15-0 and ensure that the Lions would need to score three times to win.

Crossan finally got the try he deserved with virtually the last action of the match, evading two tackles to add some respectibility to the score.

A disappointed Griffiths said afterwards: "It was a close first half, 0-0, and it was obvious whoever scored first was going to have a very big advantage. We had two or three good chances in the first half and we didn't take advantage of any of those.

"We knew the Argentinians were one of the best sides out there this year.

They've had seven games coming into this tournament as practice and we didn't get any form of team pattern going. We've only got ourselves to blame and we lost to a better side.'' Dennis Cherry got Bermuda's only try as South Africa avenged last year's defeat with a 32-7 walloping of the hosts in the Plate semi-final.

Bermuda had held firm in the first period, trailing just 8-0 at the interval, but South Africa stepped up the pressure after the break, running in four more tries.

Cherry forced the ball over the line to reduce the arrears with 10 minutes remaining following a strong run by Freedom Burrows.