RHYTHM OF THE MIGHT..

Departing coach Schmidt is left to wonder what could have been for his Ireland side if they’d just stuck to their winning formula

RHYTHM is a dancer for a departing Joe Schmidt as he dissected what went wrong for Ireland in Japan.

The Kiwi coach hammered that buzz word home as he opened up on his lessons learned during the World Cup, three days removed from their quarter-final mauling at the hands of New Zealand.

And as it became clear that Ireland hadn’t quite found their rhythm throughout the year and on Saturday morning, Schmidt pinpointed a change in preparation he made earlier this year that he would love to take back.

“You have a rhythm and if a rhythm works, you want to keep adding,” Schmidt said.

“If you do change what you’re doing, I think it’s about doing it with a balance.

“That rhythm is a bit of a comfort blanket for players in their preparation.

“I do think that we didn’t quite have the same rhythm that the All Blacks had and their coaching staff thought it was the same, and some of their players.

“If you can retain that really positive rhythm going into matches I do think that it makes a difference.

“We changed that during the Six Nations; we changed it because we wanted to be really good in the World Cup and (we) probably would have been better off staying with our week to week focus, to live in the moment and play the tournament we were in.

“If I had my time over I would probably change that. But my time is finished.

“They will be great learnings that the team and the squad and the current coaching staff will take forward.”

But looking back, Schmidt beamed as he listed off the silver linings of his time at the helm – proudly remembering the highlights of a sweet era that ended on a sour note.

“The high points are probably some of the messages I’ve received in the last 48 hours just from explayers, or people who’ve said there was a real impact during the six and a half years.

“I know the trophies are the visible things, the wins are the visible things – but you want to try to help people get better, not just players improve.

“I think that I worked as hard as I could to do that.

“It doesn’t always work out in those two 40 minute periods, those two incredible brutal, but incredibly enjoyable periods where we’ve had those trophies fall our way.

“Obviously, talking about that Grand Slam (inset) is special. That first-half in Twickenham, that was as good as we got, probably.

“There’s been some special days with the crowd. I would say one of my best memories is France at the last World Cup.

“The Irish crowd that were in the stadium that day were absolutely phenomenal.

“I know the next week didn’t go well for us with the carnage that happened in that game but then it was an incredibly proud moment to watch the players acknowledge the crowd.

“So I’ll take away some really special memories, but they’re a little bit hard to dig out at the moment because they’re clouded by the disappointment of Saturday.”