WAY TO GO, JOE

Schmidt is ready if it’s All Blacks next

IRELAND booked their World Cup quarter final place thanks to a seven-try trouncing of Samoa — and Joe Schmidt feels his squad are in a far better position than at this stage four years ago.

Schmidt’s men battered France in Cardiff four years ago to reach the knockout stages but that brutal encounter took its toll as Ireland lost four key players before the last-eight meeting with Argentina.

Johnny Sexton, Peter O’Mahony and Paul O’Connell were ruled out through injury while Sean O’Brien was banned for punching Pascal Pape. Already shorn of Jared Payne, Ireland suffered a 43- 20 drubbing by the Pumas.

Ireland have lost Jack Conan to injury and Bundee Aki — sent off for a dangerous tackle yesterday — may miss next weekend’s game due to a suspension, but Schmidt still has all his key men available for the quarter final.

‘We’ve certainly got more bodies available and that’s a positive,’ said the Ireland head coach. ‘There’s a bit more uncertainty this time than last time. Once we played France, we knew we were playing Argentina. There was more certainty about what we could do to prepare for that.

‘It’s a bit awkward because we have to wait for that final game of the pool to find out who we play.

‘We’ve got a better body count, I would say we have 31 fit players.

‘If we do lose Bundee, well, last time losing your captain O’Connell, losing your talismanic lineout loose forward like O’Brien, your director of operations Sexton and O’Mahony a leader in the lineout — plus Payne.

‘It was a kind of concertina effect for us. This time, hopefully, we’ve got through unscathed and we can give it our best shot.’

Schmidt could very well be coming up against the All Blacks for the fifth time as Ireland coach.

The New Zealander has guided Ireland to a brace of historic wins over the land of his birth — in Chicago in 2016 and Dublin last year.

But he admitted a potential meeting with the back-to-back world champions is as tough as it gets.

‘Yeah, I feel that you’ve got to be at your very, very best to have a chance and the All Blacks are a team that you could play at your best and still not quite get the result. Because they weren’t No1 in the world for 10 years and they’re not back-to-back World Cup winners for no reason.

‘They’re up there because of the personnel they have, because of the culture they have and the performance they manage to put together on a regular basis.

‘So for us it would be, to a degree, a mountain to climb but I think after this win the lads got their boots on and they’ve got a few crampons and they’ve taken a little bit of an ascent.

‘Obviously the whole thing gets steeper next week but if it is the All Blacks then we’ll look to scale those heights.’

Aki is set to be cited for his high tackle on UJ Seuten, but Schmidt is hopeful that the Connacht centre will escape a ban following his 29thminute red card.

‘We live in hope, we’ll see what the judiciary decide but once it’s a red card you sense a loss of control over what happens next,’ he added.