Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
AUSTRALIA TESTS We’d love to win but there’s more to this tour than just that
SCHMIDT IS DESPERATE TO BUILD A SQUAD THAT CAN’T BE DESTABILISED
JOE SCHMIDT insists a tour series win over Australia is not key to Ireland’s World Cup hopes – stability is.
When England won the 2003 World Cup, their successful southern hemisphere tour just four months earlier was seen as a vital step towards their coronation.
Clive Woodward’s side beat both New Zealand and Australia, and it was said that when they returned from that trip they were as closely-knit as a club team.
Schmidt headed off Down Under yesterday with a very strong Ireland squad that will provide the core group – minus injured skipper Rory Best – travelling to Japan for the World Cup in 15 months.
But the coach stresses that it’s not so much Wallaby wins that will help the men in green progress towards a best ever World Cup showing.
Rather, it’s the chance to add further experience and depth to a talent pool that he has grown since the injury-blighted end to the last tournament.
“You can be destabilised so quickly,” said Schmidt, who referred to Ireland’s injury nightmare against France in the last pool game of those finals that deprived him of vital players for the last eight loss to Argentina.
“You lose enough players at the top level – key players.
“The key thing for Clive was they won in 2003 but they kept that side together – and that side went through to the World Cup later in the year and did a great job.
“We’ve lost Rory and there are a few things we put in place that revolve around Rory because he has a certain amount of gravitas in the group.
“You feel a little bit destabilised as a result but that’s only one guy, even though it’s late in the day.
“But what a fantastic opportunity for Niall Scannell. That’s the way we’d look at it.”
Schmidt does admit that there’s a bit of a ‘wow’ factor building in terms of Ireland’s playing depth.
Focusing in on his loose forward options as an example, he said: “Rhys Ruddock just got back a little bit late. The most he’s played in recent weeks was 55 minutes last weekend.
“You lose guys like Josh van der Flier, you have Sean O’brien unavailable and yet you’ve got a couple of guys who really came through in the Six Nations.
“The likes of Dan Leavy. Jordi Murphy’s had a really strong end to the season. Tadhg Beirne, as a guy that can play at lock and No6, yeah, you do start to think, ‘wow’.”