Maybe it was a kick in the pants we did need..
THERE’S been no hiding place among previous triumphs for Joe Schmidt this week.
When he addressed a group of coaches on Wednesday, the architect of three Six Nations title successes was asked if his landmark victories with Ireland had insulated him from the chill of losing to England.
“I tell you what, for me it doesn’t get any easier,” he said yesterday. “I think it’s just as tough.
“They felt, ‘But surely your past results protect you from...?’. It doesn’t protect you from anything. It certainly doesn’t protect you from yourself. You don’t want to lose anything.”
The 32-20 defeat to a fired up Red Rose squad has ended talk of another Grand Slam.
Schmidt added: “I do look back sometimes and believe that, ‘Yeah, we needed that real kick to get ourselves restarted’.
“But it’s not a reality check that I believe we needed – it’s a reality check for people externally that we’re just as human as any other team and things can go wrong for us.
“We can’t rely on people outside of our group, we can only rely on
ourselves so maybe it’s the kick in the pants that we need. Maybe it will focus our minds.
“But there are very few times this group of young men don’t have their minds focused.”
Schmidt didn’t sleep much last weekend as he considered what went wrong after losing a championship match at home for the first time under his watch.
The internal questions came thick and fast in the wake of the massive setback.
“Did we do enough work last week?” he reflected. “Did we get them primed the way we needed to be when we knew that brutality was coming?
“Did we push too hard on the side of being disciplined,
trusting that officials would take care of foul play?
“Were we too clean, do we need to push the boundary more? To be honest, I don’t think we do. We play a really physical game. I’m incredibly proud of the way our players play. They try to play within the laws and try to commit fully to what they’re doing.
“We were off last week and you do question yourself a heck of a lot. You’re trying to decipher what’s best and what needs to happen next.
“But one of the great things is you’ve got to get straight on with the next game and so you’ve got somewhere to go.
“You’ve got to dust yourself off and
immediately start to demonstrate your confidence in the group because you can’t not be confident in them. What they’ve achieved is fantastic.”
Schmidt’s focus quickly had to turn to the difficult trip to Scotland this weekend.
Before the squad flew to Edinburgh yesterday, he confirmed there will be five changes to his team at Murrayfield.
With Chris Farrell, Quinn Roux and Jack Conan included – Roux will call the lineout with Peter O’mahony – this is will be a searching test of squad depth.
Injuries may have forced Ireland’s hand, yet Schmidt stressed he might have made changes anyway against Ireland’s first World Cup opponents.
He said: “Five changes? I think that’s perfect. It’s exactly what you may suffer later on in the year. “Therefore let’s invest in people now, let them demonstrate that they own the jersey and have the right ability to contribute. We’re pretty excited about seeing some of the guys who’ve come in.”