Veteran Juan Martin Hernandez has led Argentina to a nine-try 64-19 hammering of plucky Namibia in their final Pool C clash.

The opening try on Sunday by the 33-year-old, known as the “Magician”, set up the Pumas for a convincing warm-up for their quarter-final in Cardiff next Sunday against France or Six Nations champions Ireland.

Namibia – beaten 67-14 and 63-3 on previous World Cup meetings with Argentina – exited heads held high having scored three tries in Leicester.

The Pumas made up for an early penalty miss by Santiago Iglesias from in front of the posts with a splendid try in the seventh minute fashioned and finished by Hernandez.

Namibia’s challenge became ever more harder as centre JC Greyling was sent to the sin bin by Pascal Gauzere for making no effort to tackle his opponent with his arms.

Iglesias made it 10-0 from the resulting penalty, but it was Namibia who bit back.

A lacksadaisical pass by Hernandez was seized upon by Johan Tromp, who kicked it ahead, the ball bounced into his arms and he touched down under the posts for his second try of the tournament.

Lax Namibian defending though allowed Moroni to break four tackles and skate over for his first try for his country.

Wing Horacio Agulla notched their third try, and Facundo Isa went over for the fourth.

The Pumas had a fifth shortly before half-time, another scrappy effort that resulted in prop Lucas Noguera picking the loose ball up from a metre out and touching down.

Greyling’s smile returned when he grabbed a loose ball and broke an Argentinian tackle to run in and score their second try, raising his arm in the air as he approached the line.

Matias Alemanno went over for another try, converted by Iglesias for 43-14 but the South American side were reduced to 14 shortly after when replacement Marcello Bosch was sin-binned for a spear tackle on Kotze just after coming on.

Leonardo Senatore rounded off a superb Argentinian move for yet another Pumas try.

Julian Montoya was on the end of another flowing Pumas move to dot down for their eighth try and Tomas Cubelli added a ninth.

Namibia got on the wrong side of the officials again with five minutes remaining as Tinus du Plessis was sin-binned for taking out his man in the air.

However, there was still time for the Namibians to score a try, Eugene Jantjes touching down right at the death.