No hard feelings Joe Schmidt, says Mike Ross

There were no ‘one more year’ chants, no #thanksRossy sponsor’s hashtag, just a phone call.

After 61 caps, over half of them under Joe Schmidt, Mike Ross’s Ireland career came to an unspoken end last summer.

With two Six Nations winner’s medals in his pocket and a host of great memories, Ross went out smiling, noting that few professionals get to bid farewell any other way.

“I think you have to be a bit lucky to get the big send off, the way Brian O’Driscoll went out, I don’t think anyone else got that,” Ross said.

“If you look at Paul O’Connell, his last involvement was on a stretcher. David Wallace’s last involvement was getting chopped by Manu Tuilagi in a World Cup warm-up, so not a lot of us get to go out on our own terms.

“You’ll always push yourself as much as you can, try to get as much out of it as you can, that might mean sacrificing a big farewell.

“I was obviously hugely disappointed to miss out on a bit of history over in Chicago, but Tadhg [Furlong]’s come through, he’s playing really well, there’s some lads for the future in John Ryan and Finlay Bealham and I’d like to think I’ve made my contribution to the jersey.

“I can’t really complain. My international career spanned about five years, so I think I squeezed as much as I possibly could out of it.

“I finished off playing test rugby at 36, it’s not a bad length of time.”

Before last November’s autumn tests, Schmidt rang Ross to say he would be trying out some young blood in Chicago and the three home tests. If an emergency arose, he’d get a call, but it was time to look forward.

“It was nice to get the call, I’d known the man a long time, nearly every medal I won, I won under him,” Ross said.

Tadhg Furlong filled Ross’s boots well in Chicago, doing what Ross and others before him had found impossible — beating the All Blacks.

The veteran prop couldn’t have been happier for the young buck. “I remember watching him in 2013 or 2014, he was playing against Cardiff,” he said. “You’d see flashes from him and I was thinking ‘shit, I’m in trouble here’.

“He’s a really good guy, we’ve a great relationship, we text each other a fair bit, we talk, he pops over for coffee now and then. I feel pride. A huge amount. It’s funny, it’s like a big brother, little brother kinda relationship, I’m trying to keep him under my wing. He’s done really well.”

After making the step up to test level look easy, Furlong experienced the tougher side of life with defeats in Scotland and Wales. Ross is certain Furlong will learn the required lessons.

“I said to him the other day, he’s going to find it more difficult the longer he goes on because teams will have more footage of him, they’ll figure out stuff, that will make life more difficult, and he’s going to have to evolve with it. I think he’s well capable of that,” he said.

Schmidt, too, will evolve, as Ireland build toward a second World Cup under the New Zealander. This year’s Six Nations marked a second season without silverware for the former Leinster boss, a not too familiar feelings.

“If you look at his record he came to Leinster in 2010, won the Heineken Cup in 2011, won it in 2012, the Challenge Cup in 2013 and the PRO12, then the 2014 and 2015 Six Nations, so he’s probably feeling a bit light in his pockets,” Ross said.

“It didn’t happen this time but there was a smile back on the face after beating England here.

“He’s a clever man, he’ll always look to challenge himself, to evolve, to come up with new and better ways of doing things. That’s how he became as good as he is. He’s not a man to settle for one thing, Ireland will always look to evolve the way they play.”