Schmidt delivers a positive prognosis on recovering Irish
Joe Schmidt enjoys nothing better than to pick up a metaphor and run with it. After Ireland’s patchy win over Argentina in the autumn, the Kiwi likened his team to a misfiring car, one which needed a bit of “finetuning” so as to become a “cohesive, smooth-running vehicle” again. One week later, Ireland summoned a magnificent performance to see off New Zealand for the first time on home soil.
After this unconvincing win – which has given Ireland a glimmer of hope of retaining their Six Nations title – Schmidt reached for a medical metaphor instead.
Ireland, he observed, were like a patient suffering with various ailments: confidence issues stemming from that bruising defeat by England 10 days ago, an ever-lengthening injury list, on-field setbacks, and so on.
But the fact that they overcame so many obstacles on Saturday and still came through, he argued, would help to “vaccinate” his team for the future, making them stronger in the long run.
Schmidt may have a point. He made five changes for this game, losing Devin Toner, CJ Stander, Garry Ringrose and Robbie Henshaw to injury after the England game, and making one tactical substitution, with Sean O’brien replacing Josh van der Flier on the openside flank.
If that was not enough, Ireland then lost their key player, Johnny Sexton, within half an hour of kickoff. Ireland were leading 12-3 by that stage, thanks to tries from Murray and Jacob Stockdale. But that was entirely unrepresentative of the game up to that point, with Scotland having bossed it.
Ireland, though, stuck grimly to their task. Even after Scotland got the try their start merited, Finn Russell popping to Sam Johnson to make it 12-10, Ireland showed resolve. While never fluent, their defence was up to its usual high standard. And having held out for one 25-phase set at the end of the first half, they gradually squeezed the life out of Scotland in the second.
Sexton’s replacement, Joey Carbery, was instrumental in that effort. It was Carbery’s error, shortly after coming on, which had allowed Russell the interception that led to Scotland’s first-half try. But the Munster fly-half grew in confidence as the game wore on, making a number of key tackles as well as scorching clear at one point and floating a beautiful pass out to Keith Earls, from which his provincial teammate scored the game’s final try.
“More and more as the game went on, I thought,” Schmidt said when asked whether he felt Carbery had shown composure. “He was a bit ruffled especially after that [firsthalf ] intercept. But you know what? That is good growth. That is good opportunity to say, ‘I am under pressure here now, the team is under pressure, I’ve got to stay in the game and I’ve still got to make good decisions and I’ve still to boss the team’.”
Schmidt, who also declared himself happy with the experience banked by Quinn Roux at lock, added that the aim was to avoid the sort of scenario that befell the team in 2015 when injuries to key players derailed their World Cup.
“Any time we get that opportunity for time for a guy like Joey he is going to profit,” he said. “He is growing into a player who can boss the team.
“I think late changes, the number of changes, losing Johnny in beflanker, hind … I thought after we scored those two tries and went up 12-3 we might break the game open, get some fluency. [But] obviously losing Johnny didn’t help. I think we just became a little bit indisciplined when the intercept happened.
“But any time we get the opportunity to blend guys in and we’re forced to make late changes and to kind of reconstruct what we do on the pitch, it helps vaccinate us against what happened.
“[And] while no vaccination is 100 per cent, you are hoping that, inch by inch, you can get a little bit more comfortable and [build] confidence that people can step in.”
Whether Schmidt is putting too positive a spin on things remains to be seen. But there is certainly a case for saying that Ireland could benefit in the long run from the shellacking by England at the Aviva Stadium.
It pricked the bubble of expectation, of being the “second-best team in the world”, allowing Ireland an opportunity to reboot. Italy are up next in Rome, then France at home. It is not too far-fetched to think Ireland could go into the final game of the championship, in Cardiff, with a shot at the title.
“It has tended to in past championships,” Schmidt smiled when asked whether he felt the fluency would return by the end of this Six Nations. We shall see.
Scores
Scotland Ireland Referee