JOEY GETS NOD
Schmidt hands No.10 shirt to Carbery for Aviva test against Fiji
JOE SCHMIDT has his fingers crossed that Joey Carbery can wow a soldout Aviva Stadium on his first home Ireland start tomorrow.
The 22-year-old New Zealander — whose family moved to Athy, Co Kildare when he was 11 — has been chosen at out-half against Fiji in an Irish team showing 13 changes from the side that crushed South Africa.
And Schmidt is hoping one of Ireland rugby’s most exciting prospects in years can now deliver on his much-hyped potential even though he has spent most of this season playing full-back with Leinster. His only run at out-half came six days ago when he was subbed on late for Johnny Sexton against the Springboks.
‘Because he has played six minutes of competitive rugby at No10, we are asking a lot of him,’ said Schmidt. ‘The comforting thing is he asks a lot of himself and he wants to be as good as he can be and when you put yourself under pressure you find out a little bit more about yourself. ‘We don’t necessarily have that many windows for Joey to accelerate his learning, so this is an opportunity.
‘He has played almost 450 minutes of competitive rugby this year but that has
JOE Schmidt yesterday set the bar lower than expected for Saturday’s latest midseries fixture against tier two opposition. In recent Novembers, Ireland have excelled when their Kiwi coach rolled the dice and backed a young, less-familiar team instead of relying on the usual suspects.
Last year, having changed the entire XV that had beaten the All Blacks in Chicago, the revamp worked well as the selection scored eight-tries to eventually blitz Canada 52-21.
And two years before that, when Ireland were last coming off the back of a November dismissal of South Africa, it was a similar outous come. A team with 13 changes gelled to score six tries and get the better of Georgia 49-7.
These were entertaining winter hit-outs, each one showcasing the next level of player that Schmidt had at his disposal at that time. Such was the value for money to be had in those high-scoring affairs, the attendances of 40,156 and 43,000 respectively will be topped by tomorrow’s 51,000 sell-out.
However, Schmidt wasn’t sounding an openly optimistic note that another heartening try-fest must surely be on the cards — this expectation is the reason why all the tickets have gone.
Instead, he was reticent about making a prediction that a gener- win is on the horizon.
‘Any result will be really good because Fiji are ranked a lot higher than Canada and bring a different level of physical impact and athleticism and skill, particularly through the back end of the tackle with their ability to offload and keep the ball alive and really damage you,’ said Schmidt.
‘This is probably a tougher challenge because of how they play and where they are ranked [ninth] and the individuals they have. We are a bit more vulnerable this time.
‘We have kept a couple of guys [Andrew Conway and Devin Toner] where we made all the changes last time. That was mostly because by the time we got back from Chicago, everyone was pretty well wrecked whereas we haven’t had to travel this week.
‘There is still a degree of freshness in the group, but any Test against South Africa takes a little bit of a toll even if the result was a little bit exaggerated at the end. There was 70 minutes where that result was still in doubt and so the players were working very, very hard.
‘I’d love to see them get a result [against Fiji], but we are as much as anything looking at individuals and how they perform and how they fit, because you just don’t have these opportunities apart from this.
‘Next week is Argentina and then first up in the Six Nations is France away and it’s not a place to experiment.’
Mid-November is that place for a shake-up, though, and the risks Ireland are taking are exciting, especially at half-back.
It will be most interesting to see whether Joey Carbery and Kieran Marmion, two of the five promotions from last Saturday’s highimpact bench, can provide a starting alternative to the world-class combination that is Johnny Sexton and Conor Murray.
What sharply illustrates the difference between last weekend’s level of certainty and tomorrow’s punt is the number of caps in the starting Irish XV. Against the Boks, Schmidt (left) chose 14 players with 573 caps between them (509 as starters) in a selection where Bundee Aki was earning a debut cap. Now another rookie midfielder is included — Ulster’s Chris Farrell comes in for his debut — but the level of experience surrounding him is dramatically different. This Ireland XV contains just 188 caps (115 as starters), a drop off of 385 from six days ago.
Experimentation is a delicate business, and the sight of raw trio Rob Herring, Andrew Porter and Ultan Dillane — one start between them — filling three of the front five positions further highlights the extent of the change-up.
But Schmidt must privately be happy that his wholesale changes have worked out previously and tomorrow should be no different, despite the coach’s caution about Fiji’s exaggerated world ranking.
The visitors have dangerous individuals but not a dangerous team, and this is the reason why Ireland should be able to produce a spectacle in a fixture which isn’t all about the lesser-known names, such as first-time starter, Munster winger Darren Sweetnam.
There was a time when Dave Kearney was one of the first players pencilled in on Schmidt’s firstchoice teamsheet but it’s 21 months since the injury-ravaged winger was last seen at Test level.
Similarly, it’s an opportunity for Jordi Murphy — a try-scorer in the magical win over New Zealand — to get his first look in since doing his cruciate on that magical night in Chicago.
Plenty to see then, plenty to enthuse about. You just wish Schmidt would join in with the optimism.