SCHMIDT IS SURE HE CAN FIX WOEFUL IRISH IN TIME FOR WORLD CUP OPENER
JOE SCHMIDT is confident he can reverse Ireland’s worrying slump in form in time for the World Cup opener against Scotland, citing his early days as Leinster head coach when he guided the province through a rough patch. Schmidt succeeded Michael Cheika in the summer of 2010, but the New Zealander’s reign got off to a rocky start when Leinster lost three of their first four league games, including a stunning 29-13 defeat away to Treviso. However, Schmidt steadied the ship with Leinster going on to claim the Heineken Cup at the end of that season. Now, he faces the biggest challenge of his coaching career following Ireland’s alarming 57-15 loss to England at Twickenham. ‘I said to the players after the game: “Look, I’ve been coaching professionally for 17 years, I’ve had these days”,’ said Schmidt. ‘I think there’s two or three of them, so they are very, very rare and we have turned them around each time. I do firmly believe that we can do it this time. ‘When you have a game where so many elements of it don’t come together, it is very hard to get into the game and I think we made it easier for England than it should have been. England are a really good side and so they took advantage of whatever we did offer them — and it is incredibly disappointing. ‘I would have to say, I knew we were a bit vulnerable but we contributed to a greater vulnerability because we didn’t look after the ball well enough from set-pieces, we didn’t really stop their momentum, slipping off 34 tackles like we did. ‘We had some good phases where we defended pretty well and even coming to half-time, if we had got into the changing rooms at 15-10 down I would have thought that actually, in the context of 40 minutes of rugby, that’s not a bad result because we’d lost three line-outs by then, we’d missed 20-odd tackles by then and we were five points off them. ‘But just that last score before half-time, it probably knocked the confidence and the vigour a bit, but it shouldn’t have. ‘We have to be able to go back into a second half and get back into games, so that will be part of the challenge.’ Ireland travel to Cardiff this Saturday in search of a much-needed confidence boost with their World Cup opener against Scotland less than four weeks’ away. One thing is certain, Ireland need a
vastly-improved display against the Welsh after Saturday’s shambolic display in London. ‘I’m not saying we can get back and win against a Wales side which are probably a little bit further down the road than we are but I think in those performance elements I was talking about, I’m really confident we’ll see an improvement,’ Schmidt added. ‘We’ve just got to make sure that improvement is sufficient for us to be really competitive and then even more competitive the following week — and then as close to peak as we can be against Scotland in four weeks’ time.’