Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
CARBERY’S IN AT OUT-HALF
Schmidt gives Joey a chance to stake Irish claim in No10 jersey
JOEY CARBERY is just one of a number of young Irishmen under stress to impress at the Aviva Stadium tomorrow.
Joe Schmidt has made a massive 13 changes to face Fiji from the side that romped to victory over South Africa.
And Carbery’s performance will come under most scrutiny.
Ireland have 18 games to go until they arrive in Japan for the World Cup in two years’ time and Schmidt describes the opportunities presented to young players now as “precious”.
The new centre partnership of debutant Chris Farrell and Stuart Mccloskey – they’ve one Test cap between them – is intriguing.
The same goes for Andrew Porter’s first front row Test selection in Dublin.
But it’s Carbery’s first start at out-half since his kicking malfunction in New Jersey against the USA in the summer.
With Paddy Jackson sidelined, the New Zealand-born Athy prodigy has the opportunity to nail down the Johnny Sexton understudy role.
“He has just played six minutes of competitive rugby at No10 this season, we’re asking a lot of him,” acknowledged Schmidt, who has watched the 22-year-old played at full-back for Leinster over the last few months.
“The comforting thing is he takes a lot on himself and wants to be as good as he can be.
“If you put yourself under pressure you find out a little bit more about yourself.
“We don’t necessarily have many windows for Joey to accelerate his learning. This is an opportunity to accelerate that as best we can.
“He has played almost 450 minutes of competitive rugby this year but that has all been at full-back.
“I understand why that is but if he doesn’t get those windows elsewhere we’ve got to try and get them for him here because we do need some support beneath Johnny – just as we do for all sorts of players.
“For him, this match, it tightens the whole thing up. And for him to move from 15 to 10 tightens the whole thing up a lot further.
“It’s going to be a tough day at the office for Joey and we want to see how he negotiates that.
“You can’t build them, though, unless they have had the acid test, the opportunities to put themselves in and learn from it.”
Schmidt admits that because France are Ireland’s first opponents in the Six Nations in February, it will be Sexton who plays against Argentina next week.
But it’s clear he has huge time for Carbery.
“He’s got unbelievably good balance,” Schmidt said. “He can look like he’s gliding and then suddenly step, go and he doesn’t seem to miss a beat.
“He’s got really polished passing skills and his kicking skills have really come on in leaps and bounds.
“He got a bit of a tough time in the USA and with some of the feedback he got. But, internally, we were happy that when he decided to kick there was the space.
“It got closed down very quickly and he’ll learn from that hopefully.
“That’s tough for a kid and Joey’s built that confidence through that tour.
“We know he’ll be better for this experience. Will he be good enough on the day? We’d love him to be and he’s keen to be, he has worked hard to be.
“The temptation was to put some more experience around him but then Kieran Marmion keeps evolving.
“He’s absolutely lionhearted, he has a real spark to the way he plays and hopefully that will take a lot of pressure off Joey.”