There’s not so much leading to be done.. this group of young Ireland players is FANTASTIC
FOR the magic to happen there’s got to be good chemistry - the right mix of young and old.
Joe Schmidt hopes this morning that he’s got that balance just right and that Grand Slam glory will follow last week’s confirmation that his class of 2018 are Six Nations champions.
It’s been a riveting campaign, going back to that Johnny Sexton drop goal to win in Paris and then the scoring of 17 tries in the three home games that followed.
So now, history beckons this Ireland team. There’s only the small matter of winning in Twickenham to contend with – which on paper is a tougher proposition than the Slam winners of 2009 faced in Cardiff.
Hooker Rory Best is one of only two survivors from that triumph – and he’s been hearing from some of the class of 09 this week.
“Yeah, we’ve been getting a few texts and a few bits and pieces,” smiled the 35-year-old. “I suppose you know how big the game is whenever somebody like Denis Leamy picks the phone up and tries to put some kind of text together. It’s borderline English.”
Cue laughter.
Best continued: “But when you get bits and pieces like that from guys that you played with, that maybe you haven’t seen or spoken with in a long time – everyone knows the magnitude of the game anyway – but it’s good that these guys are willing you on.
“They’re not sitting behind their record going, ‘Oh, we want to be the last team’. You can really feel the support from them wanting us to get across the line.”
Back then, Declan Kidney’s team depended on young players like Tommy Bowe, Rob Kearney
– the other survivor – Stephen Ferris, Luke Fitzgerald and Jamie Heaslip.
This time around youth has helped to drive a team that was shorn of senior men from the start –
Heaslip, Jared
Payne, Sean
O’brien, Tommy
O’donnell.
During the tournament,
Schmidt lost Josh van der
Flier against France, then
Robbie Henshaw against Italy. The depth Schmidt has been searching for has been rigorously road-tested over the last seven weeks and, so far at least, come up trumps. Remarkably riding the crest of this record 11-game winning streak, James Ryan, Bundee Aki, Dan Leavy, Jacob Stockdale, Joey Carbery, Andrew Porter and Jordan Larmour have yet to taste defeat for Ireland.
That record, of course, is on the line against an England side desperate to overturn back-to-back defeats to Scotland and France.
But as Best concedes, this young bunch don’t appear to need much leading even if it is a team of exceptional leaders such as Johnny Sexton, Peter O’mahony and himself. “They don’t really,” said the 35-year-old. “This group of young players are fantastic. “They’re already so experienced, especially James Ryan. I think he’s played more times for Ireland than he has for Leinster, that’s phenomenal experience to have at that age and he’s always learning. They can drive sessions with their energy and it’s great to be a part of.”
Ah, the innocence of youth. Twickenham may hold no fear for them – none of them played in the St Patrick’s Day scrum massacre of 2012 for example.
Best prays it works in Ireland’s favour this time.
“We’ll go out with a plan that we feel if we implement as close to perfectly as we can then we will win the game,” he said.
“In terms of that sort of no fear, it’s great. That youthful exuberance and energy, they haven’t been to places like Twickenham, they haven’t been in games where we have been beaten up in.
“They don’t know that so it is important we allow that to grow as well as imparting the knowledge of how tough it’s going to be and how big we need to be in certain areas.
“We cannot go out without respecting the opposition, like we always do. But we have got to make sure we don’t go into our shells.”