11 IRISH MEN ON OUR TEAM OF THE CHAMPIONSHIP
Schmidt’s bold Ireland were poetry in
JOE SCHMIDT says his final message on Saturday afternoon was a simple one.
He was inside a Twickenham dressing room with his players. Outside, snow was falling tirelessly out of the sky, down on top of a crowd of over 82,000.
Most of them were English supporters, determined to see their team revive a Six Nations defence that had gone seriously awry over the previous two weeks.
There was an Irish contingent that ran to perhaps 10,000 but the great majority were English fans who would do what they could to help inspire their men.
Their cheers lasted about five minutes. They mustered one rendition of ‘Swing Low’ when Johnny Sexton hiked up a Garryowen and Rob Kearney distracted Anthony Watson, allowing Garry Ringrose to score.
And Ireland are not a team who easily surrender the advantage. Even a half-engaged English supporter would have understood that.
Their chances of success relied on getting ahead and make Ireland take risks.
Just the opposite happened, as Ireland’s exquisite certainty handed them the critical early lead.
This is a team that do the right thing practically every time. No wonder, then, that Joe Schmidt didn’t say much.
Their work was done. His work was done. Irish players attest to the fierce effort expected of them when they are in camp. Saturday brought the consequence of all that toil.
Ireland knew what they had to do, so all Schmidt did was wish them well.
‘I just said, “Get out and play lads”,’ he reported. ‘People presume there is a lot of structure in this, but I think some of the best poetry I have ever read? It goes beyond the bounds of standard grammar.
‘But when you know the grammar really well you can utilise what you like to get the message across. Like when players have a structure they can go beyond that and play whatever they see in front of them.
‘I just said, “Get out and play lads”, I said, “Enjoy this because these are the days you have worked so hard to hit”.’
Schmidt deserves enormous credit himself, but he was as quiet and understated as usual after this.
As he spoke, English players left their dressing room to speak to the press. ‘Still talking,’ said Dylan Hartley to his countryman with a smile, as he walked past the Ireland head coach.
Schmidt grew up in rural New Zealand, where rugby was everything. And, he reminded us, Five Nations rugby, as it was when he was a boy, exercised a hold on the young Schmidt.
‘It’s hard to equate anything with this. When I was a kid I used to watch the Five Nations on TV and think these places were on a whole different planet with those massive crowds.
‘It’s pretty hard when you’re born in Kawakawa, 1400 people and you’re shifted to the metropolis of Woodville, 1600 people, it’s huge,’ he grinned.
‘This is massive and it’s massive for the group of players that we’ve got.
‘I’d have to say I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be involved in some great management groups and some great coaching groups and even more so the players themselves.
‘No matter what you try to do as a coach you can’t create courage. ‘You can try to add to character or build on character but there’s got to be the character there to start with and they definitely demonstrated that today.’
If the spirit of the Irish group was unbendable, their style was notable, too. CJ Stander’s try was scored using a move that, said Schmidt, they last tried against the same opponents three years ago.
To see a tighthead prop like Tadhg Furlong slip a reverse pass to Bundee Aki, is to understand s o me t h i n g of S c h mi d t ’ s greatness.
Criticism of how Ireland play has irked him throughout the spring, yet Jacob Stockdale finished the campaign with seven tries.
No player, from any country, has ever scored that many in a championship.
And Ireland’s final total of 20 was also unprecedented, eight more, for instance, than when they won the Grand Slam in 2009.
Attacks on Ireland’s style were invariably misguided, and it was obvious that Schmidt found vindication not only in the results but in how Ireland picked off try after try.
‘Not everyone would agree, but we certainly worked pretty hard to try to spice our play with a bit of variety,’ he said.
‘I think we’ve been rewarded with some super tries. Some of them have been on the back of really positive defence.
‘Robbie Henshaw, unfortunately, getting that second try (against Italy), I’d rather we had one less try and one more man available but then we had Jacob Stockdale plucking those couple of intercepts against Wal e s and Scotland.
‘So some of them have come from really proactive defence and others have come from some really nice play that’s been put together by the team.’
Ireland are not a team who easily surrender ‘We’ve been rewarded with super tries’