PRIMED TO POUNCE ON PUMAS
ARGENTINA CLASH A REMINDER OF SCHMIDT’S LOWEST MOMENT AS IRELAND COACH – BUT HE AND THE PLAYERS CONTINUE TO TAKE LESSONS FROM WORLD CUP DEFEAT
IN SOME senses, the healing is superficial and the wound is still there, as raw as ever. Only a victory in next year’s World Cup quarter-final will finally allow Ireland coach Joe Schmidt to move on from the worst day he has endured in the job to date.
At the end of Thursday’s press conference, the New Zealander was asked how the team and squad are different now from the squad that faced into that last-eight clash in Cardiff in October 2015, a loss that was effectively ‘year zero’ for this current crop of players and management.
His answer was almost five minutes long and ran to 618 words, beginning with a reminder of the loss in experience that his team suffered in the build-up to the game when they lost “colossus” Paul O’Connell as well as Peter O’Mahony, Jared Payne and Johnny Sexton to injury and Seán O’Brien to suspension.
Sexton’s late withdrawal meant Ian Madigan did not have much time to train with the team, while the loss of so many leaders led to a hesitant performance.
Argentina gave one of their all-time great performances, but Ireland helped them along the way; their aerial work was poor, their scrum malfunctioned early on and they were bullied at the ruck as they lost front-up collisions.
That meant when the Pumas spread the ball wide, the retreating line was slow to get off the mark and it led to the wingers being isolated on the edges.
Luke Fitzgerald led a rally that handed Madigan a chance to put the team in front before the hour-mark, but after he missed the wind went out of Ireland’s sails and the blue-and-white wave resumed its course towards the semi-finals.
It would be no surprise to hear that when Schmidt closes his eyes he still hears the singing from the Argentinian dressingroom that echoed around the bowels of the Millennium Stadium.
Whatever introspection the coach does, he doesn’t publicly discuss his own role in the team’s failings that week.
But since that day, his decisions have been rooted in a desire to improve the game-plan and deepen the squad.
He has stated several times that no team could sustain the amount of damage that his did on that fateful week.
If New Zealand had lost Richie McCaw, Dan Carter, Ma’a Nonu, Brodie Retallick and Jerome Kaino they would have struggled equally.
O’Connell retired after the World Cup and over the subsequent three years he’s been joined by seven of the match-day squad. Three others are exiled in France or England.
So, a natural rebuilding job had to be done. Schmidt has used 77 players in the 32 games since, handing out 36 debuts.
The policy of only picking Irish-based players hardened, the IRFU pushed for more player movement within the provinces and clamped down on overseas signings.
Still, it was a slow-burner. The season that followed the World Cup was a dreadful one for Irish rugby, with none of the provinces getting out of their Champions Cup pools, while Ireland delivered their worst Six Nations campaign under Schmidt.
However, they finished with a competitive display in South Africa with a severely depleted squad and the coach committed until 2019 – signalling his desire to wash the Argentina loss from his system.
By then, Andy Farrell had come on board as defence coach, adding vicious linespeed and a strong voice to the set-up. As well as being able to rally the troops, he is strong enough to challenge the head coach. Schmidt was slowly, but surely, deepening the squad and when he left O’Mahony and O’Brien in Dublin and went and beat the All Blacks for the first time in Chicago without them, there were signs he was on to a winner.
They have developed a better running game in the years since the World Cup and while they retain good kicking options, they invariably try and keep the ball in
hand when they can.
“If you were to look at teams, a lot of teams don’t play in their own half or even in their own 22,” Keith Earls said.
“We back ourselves now, we back our skill-set and our decision-making to play from anywhere; to try and keep teams on their toes so that they can’t (drop players) into the backfield early, because we’ll run it. If they get high, we can easily kick it. We’ve a better balance.”
That balanced attack flourished last season as Ireland stormed to Schmidt’s first Grand Slam which finished with a stunning performance away to England at Twickenham.
Central to that campaiogn were a group of prospects who reached the 2016 U-20 World Cup final and were fast-tracked into the senior set-up like James Ryan, Jacob Stockdale and Andrew Porter – with 2017 flier Jordan Larmour joining them.
With a gnarled old guard being challenged by these young tyros, Schmidt had found the right balance.
“He hasn’t reinvented the wheel. Fellas are getting older, experienced, and are starting to take the reins as well,” Earls added.
“The depth thing was massive and it was out of our hands at the World Cup, obviously, and we still could have beaten Argentina in that quarter-final. But we lacked a bit of experience, we lost a lot of our leaders. Whereas now, Nos 1 to 15, 1-23 or 1-31, they can all lead. Fellas are more mature now, as well.
“It’s phenomenal. A couple of years ago, I hadn’t played for four or five weeks and I ended up starting against South Africa. If it was nowadays, you’ve two or three fellas who can easily slot in. You wouldn’t even get in the squad, never mind the team.
“The last World Cup, that’s what got us, we lost a lot of players, but now we have four or five fellas who could easily come in in any position.
“You saw it in the Six Nations when Robbie (Henshaw) got injured, then Chris (Farrell) and all of a sudden Garry Ringrose is playing... it’s credit to the coaches, to the players.”
Last summer, Ireland lost their captain on the eve of the summer tour of Australia but barely batted an eyelid as they secured a series win.
Conor Murray is set to miss tt’s game against Argentina and next week’s clash with the All Blacks and people still expect big performances.
“Joe, as Joe does, he’s learned from the lessons,” Rory Best said. “Not necessarily mistakes, we just got quite lucky in the cycle leading into 2015 because we didn’t get as many injuries so we didn’t need to turn the squad over as much.
“We’ve had a lot of injuries in this cycle at various times but we’ve also rotated players, given guys opportunities and guys have stood up.
“There are more players coming through, putting their hand up. We have more depth and we feel if you took the spine of the team out, as happened in 2015, we could cope better.
“Having said that, in 2015, the way Argentina played that day – would it have made a difference? We’re only speculating to say it would, they’d obviously say it wouldn’t.”
The last three years have been all about making sure the glass ceiling that remained intact that day is shattered next year.