IRELAND CUBS SET TO POUNCE
Schmidt’s nod to youth makes huge difference one year on
By Liam Heagney
WHAT a difference a contract extension can have on a coach’s outlook. Last March, undecided about whether to stick around for the long haul or cash in his chips and head home to New Zealand, Joe Schmidt was very much focused on the short-term.
Ireland had just beaten Scotland in Dublin to secure the top-half finish he had claimed beforehand would be satisfactory. A rejuvenated England, however, with a selection containing just two 30-something players, had just clinched the Grand Slam. Eddie Jones’ approach on taking over after the 2015 World Cup was very much ‘out with the old, in with the new’.
In contrast, the Ireland team which beat the Scots included seven players the wrong side of 30 and three more of similar vintage on the bench. As the new cycle of building towards Japan 2019 began, it didn’t exactly set pulses racing.
The coach suggested he was in no mad rush to bring down the average age by shedding the likes of Mike Ross (36), his back-up Nathan White (34) or any of the squad’s other elder statesmen.
Ten months on, though, with Schmidt now committed through to the next World Cup, all has changed. Having dispatched New Zealand and Canada back in November, Ireland closed out their autumn international programme with a youthful selection seeing off Australia.
Garry Ringrose, just 21, played with a beaming smile. A fresh-faced Josh van der Flier, 23, also dazzled and collected the man-of-the-match award. Then there were Tadhg Furlong, showing that youth was no impediment for a tighthead, and Paddy Jackson, both 24, doing likewise at out-half after what seemed like an eternity waiting in the shadows.
All this before you even had drilled down to a bench that sprung overnight sensation Joey Carbery and other young bucks such as Ultan Dillane and Kieran Marmion into a compelling fray.
Schmidt, at the helm since 2013, might well have been in a spot of bother had he persisted with his older-is-better approach. But, thanks to an infusion of youthful zest, his 40-strong squad containing 18 fresh faces, could well find itself back atop the European rugby tree. They are hungry, which, coming off the back of a first hat-trick of wins over the southern hemisphere’s big three, can only be positive.
A glance at the 2005 and 2012 championships, when predecessors Eddie O’Sullivan and Declan Kidney each had their fourth Six Nations in charge, finds tales of both regimes and messages growing stale, of respective third-placed finishes leaving a sour taste.
The more enlightened Schmidt, however, perhaps emboldened by the preaching of Andy Farrell, is poised to avoid a similar fate.
‘With constant evolution, we have a lot more depth,’ says skipper Rory Best. ‘A lot of young guys that were raw – and still are at times – have a few caps under their belt. You look at the Test arena from the outside, you play your European competitions and think, “I can make that step”. But until you actually experience that there is a significant step – your time on the ball and everything is reduced.
‘Until you get that experience and realise you have to keep working harder, you don’t develop as much as a player and we have seen that from last year. Even with guys like CJ [Stander] who came in, the way he’s playing now compared to 12 months ago. That’s coming from Test experience, looking around a competitive squad and knowing he needs to be better and working out how he can be better with some good coaches’. Stander’s emergence as a pivotal player tugs at the conscience, mind. On one hand, it grates that a South African with no Irish family connection can live here for 36 months and qualify under residency.
Indeed, nearly 20 per cent of the 32 originally selected to tour last June were foreigners travelling under a flag of convenience. However, while it’s less prevalent in the latest squad of 40 (Stander and Finlay Bealham are the only imports this time), Stander’s value is significant.
As Best alludes, the barn-storming back row is much improved and if he
We have a lot more depth and the young guys have caps under their belt
could manage 87 ball carries across five games last year (a figure only bettered in 17 years of the championship by Billy Vunipola’s 93, also achieved last term), his impact may well be extraordinary second time around.
There is already a creeping view that this tournament is already only about the March 18 Ireland-England meeting in Dublin.
In a Lions year with so much extra at stake, the introduction of the bonus point system might just provide the spark to the usually stilted February fare.
The opening month has too often thrown up dull affairs. Last year, the opening six matches across rounds one and two produced just 20 tries. In contrast, rounds four and five in March helped yield a tally of 41.
Whether or not teams will adopt a more adventurous approach earlier in the tournament given the nine wins from 15 clashes with their Rugby Championship rivals in November, remains to be seen.
Ireland undoubtedly have the ability to regain the title; Schmidt has a 67 per cent success rate, losing just a dozen of 39 matches.
However, having crashed at Wales two years ago (a defeat that ended a 10-game winning streak), thanks to the officiating of referee Wayne Barnes at the ruck, there’s been a lack of consistency, with four consecutive wins the best managed since.
Barnes, ironically, will referee the game with Wales in Cardiff in round four. It could well mean that just the title, and not the whole shooting match, is all that will be at stake come March 18.
That, though, would still make for quite a contrast to the far less ambitious outlook of 12 months ago. Ireland are back and ready to pounce. Watch out England.