We’ll finish on a high — Schmidt
Final Test offers Schmidt a chance to make amends for his mistakes
IRELAND coach Joe Schmidt is confident his muchchanged team will rise to the challenge in today’s Test series decider against South Africa in Port Elizabeth. The New Zealander has made six personnel changes and one positional switch to his starting XV as Ireland bring their season to a close. Jared Payne has been ruled out with a calf injury so Connacht’s Tiernan O’Halloran comes in for his debut while Ulster pair Stuart Olding and Luke Marshall form the midfield. ‘I’m utterly confident that they’ll make me and themselves proud,’ said Schmidt. ‘They’ll make sure that Ireland feel proud of them because that’s the way they commit to going about their work.’
THIS has been a week for Joe Schmidt to look at himself hard in the mirror.
The coach got it badly wrong last weekend in Johannesburg, his selection of a bench without depth and its sparing in-game use conspiring to leave Ireland dead on their feet at altitude and snatching painful defeat from the jaws of what should have been an exhilarating series-clinching victory.
No top tier Test team should ever lose the last 25 minutes of a match 7-29, nor the last 20 minutes 0-22, no matter what the circumstances, but this is what shockingly happened to Ireland, their growing habit of losing the run of themselves on the scoreboard in the final quarter of matches yet again materialising.
It’s the one frequent flaw in the much-praised Schmidt reign, seeing out the last 20-minute period more comfortably after the influence of his starting juggernauts begins to wane. This is where the coach’s sideline manipulation must come to bear, but the Ireland boss has too often struggled with his strategy.
Johannesburg was the 15th occasion in the New Zealander’s 34game reign — and the eighth time in this season’s 16 outings — that his team were beaten on the scoreboard in this end-game section, Ireland ultimately winning just six of those 15 games and losing nine.
Those are tough stats to swallow, particular as these final-quarter fade-outs include the history-stopping loss to New Zealand (a 0-14 collapse), the World Cup elimination to Argentina (a 0-22 surrender) and now the distressing events in Jo’burg where victory was denied in cruel fashion, overtired Irish limbs haplessly getting run over due to reinforcements lacking in quality or being too slow to be used in the first place.
That all three back line replacements only entered the field of play with Ireland having fallen into arrears highlighted how Test rugby isn’t a 23-man sport in Schmidt’s eyes, despite his many sound bites to the contrary.
Changes should have been rung earlier, given the onerous work load the likes of tiring Conor Murray and Andrew Trimble were taking on, but the collective six-minute contribution of Ian Madigan, Kieran Marmion and Tiernan O’Halloran only sounded the alarm as to what they were doing on the bench in the first place if they weren’t trusted to properly play longer cameo roles.
Amid the rubble of a defeat that has shifted series momentum back to the struggling hosts after they gleefully grasped the lifeline Schmidt’s sloppy game management present, Ireland have been trying to assert a glass half-full outlook in recent days, claiming this season-ending fixture 52 weeks after they started World Cup pre-season training is still a winnable task now they are back at sea level in Port Elizabeth.
That coastal location should have helped aching bodies recover but it’s curious how the name of team strength and conditioning coach, Jason Cowman, isn’t being heard on this exhaustive tour after it was regularly tossed into the World Cup narrative by Schmidt for allegedly having players in the best nick possible (neither, post-Argentina elimination, do we hear the name of mind coach Enda McNulty, another whose influence was previously lauded in-house). One straw to clutch heading into Test 17 in this year-long season is there was no mad panic call-up of someone from a Mediterranean beach to replace Robbie Henshaw, as happened in week three of their previous three-Test series when down a centre. That bizarre episode in 2012 had Paddy Wallace summoned from the sun in Portugal and tossed into a New Zealand maelstrom where Ireland suffered a 0-60 hammering.
That result won’t be repeated in South Africa. Yet, in relying on resources already on tour to fill a gap, Henshaw’s injury-enforced absence remarkably heralds a 17th different midfield partnership in 35 matches and an 11th different pairing in this season’s 17 games.
On paper, having Stuart Olding and Luke Marshall in tandem looks sensible as they are both from Ulster, but the reality is they have only worn the 12 and 13 shirts together in 2016 in a pair of league outings against Zebre. Hardy optimism for an emergency Test level step up.
Attitude and energy must become Irish friends today if this series is to be won. While their scrum enjoyed round two buoyancy before the all-round finalquarter collapse, the Ellis Park effort even saw the normally workaholic Jack McGrath reduced to just a two-metre gain off three carries and then falling off a pair of tackles in the lead-up to tries.
Having missed out last week, there is now heavy onus on the returning trio — Jordi Murphy, Mike Ross and CJ Stander — to set the tone. It also needs yo-yoing Jamie Heaslip back to his best. His dominance to anonymity contribution in Leinster’s two play-off games is an up-and-down sequence repeated in South Africa, his Cape Town drive flagging in Jo’burg despite a try off a maul.
Today, then, is the tour’s moment of truth. Pre-departure, the ambition was to win a first-ever Test away to the Boks. However, having done so in round one against the odds with 14-men, failure to take either of two opportunities to clinch the series would undermine the calibre of that triumph.
Schmidt owes it to his team to help them thrive this evening and seal the deal. The hand of history rests on his shoulder.