HAMMERING IS HISTORY

Squad to face Wales is primed and ready after English pasting

FOR 72 hours after the humiliation in Twickenham, Joe Schmidt did not look in control. And in the brilliant near-decade he has spent in Irish rugby, control has been a very important component of Schmidt’s success.

He is an innovator and has shown himself to be a visionary at times, but his coaching gifts have thrived within a system where his control has been total.

But a pummelling like the one Ireland took from England last Saturday shakes every aspect of a set-up, and can loosen old certainties if the problems it creates go unaddressed.

That is why it was significant that Schmidt spoke to the press on Tuesday of this week, which is unusual within a schedule that is pursued without question.

But he appeared and gave a command performance, and anyone who studied what he had to say could not doubt that he was

in charge, that he knew the issues and that they would be addressed.

Yesterday, at his more regular team announcement appointment in Carton House at Ireland’s team base outside Maynooth, it was almost as if nothing untoward had occurred in London.

That is a tribute to Schmidt’s leadership rather than a suggestion of complacency.

He has primed the squad selected for Cardiff tomorrow with their responsibilities, making plain that it was ‘one of those weeks where you do need a reaction’.

With this the third of four preparatory matches, his designs for the final squad are already emerging, with Ross Byrne, Rhys Ruddock and Jack McGrath all surely bracing for disappointment now.

As important are the absences of Robbie Henshaw and Johnny Sexton, two vital players who will need a long run-out against the Welsh in Dublin in eight days’ time.

There was the definite sense that Schmidt’s thinking has been clarified by what he saw in recent weeks; he knows, we know, cats and dogs know that players like Sexton, Henshaw, Conor Murray, Tadhg Furlong and Peter O’Mahony will travel.

But Jordi Murphy, Andrew Porter and the embattled Rory Best will be feeling good about their prospects, too.

In the case of Best, there is no question that he won’t go, but his status as a starter and captain have both been compromised by his miseries against England.

There was, though, an undeserved concentration on his difficulty; Ireland’s tackling was pitiful and their intensity was as poor, after all.

Yet if Best’s form has been an issue for at least a year now, by retaining him in the squad for tomorrow, Schmidt not only guarantees him some minutes on the pitch, but he cranks up the pressure on Niall Scannell as a starter.

All coaches have a core set of players in whom they trust, the men they build their teams but also their cultures around.

And Best remains at the heart of the Irish one.

‘Some of it is unfair,’ said Schmidt of the criticism Best has faced since Twickenham.

But within the hysteria there are also valid points made about his physical effectiveness, whether he can be as good at the breakdown as he used to be (this was once a distinguishing feature of his game), and the longstanding problems with his lineout throwing.

In calling for a reaction, Schmidt is making the challenge to his players easy to understand.

He tried to temper that, though, by telling them to keep their belief.

He knows, as anyone who has watched a struggling sportsperson does, that, in times of pressure, some shrink from the challenge.

Ireland don’t have the time for that now.

‘The message is probably to keep your belief,’ he said, ‘not to go into your shell.

‘We can’t afford to go into our shell now.

‘We’ve got two games left, and we have to get out and express ourselves. We have to get out and play the game.

‘I think the worst thing for us to do would be to be conservative or take a step backwards because we’re hesitant or we’re not utterly confident in what we’re doing or in the people either side of us.’

Part of the healing process has involved, one suspects, rationalising last week’s hammering.

Schmidt said at one point that ‘I do believe we’re in a better place to play rugby now, rather than prepare to play rugby,’ an oblique reference to the suggestion he made amid the ruins of the English performance.

It sought to point out that England were more battle-hardened than his team.

There is some logic in that, but the minutes or even days after such a battering is not the time to make it.

Ireland have to accept what happened in Twickenham in all its ugliness, and somewhere within its wreckage they may find inspiration for coming battles.

But offering excuses, no matter how tentative or qualified they may be, is a waste of time now.

September 22 is zooming towards the group, but before then the sizeable forms of Wales and their voluble leader fill the horizon.

Warren Gatland is a brilliant rugby leader but too often he is a tiresome loudmouth, too.

He was at it again yesterday, dabbling in mind games, a favoured pursuit – that is until someone stands up to him and he retreats.

His more eyebrow raising claims are reported elsewhere in these pages, but he also made this observation about Wales’s second warm-up game against the English, which they won having lost the first.

‘We dominated and thoroughly deserved to win that game.

‘It wasn’t a classic match but one about character,’ he said.

The inference is that character is needed to beat England – and so Ireland must have been deficient.

He is probably right, but his lack of graciousness, typical as it is, should jar within the Irish group.

It could be an important source of inspiration for Cardiff, where a win would right some of Ireland’s issues.

‘The message is probably to keep your belief’