Josh van der Flier: ‘If it had come off, I’d have been the hero’
Much better to face up to the inevitable, to rip the plaster off in one painful swoop and be done with it, rather than wait for the video nasty.
So he approached the Ireland coach after the final whistle to discuss the moment when he tried and failed to force the All Black wall.
Schmidt chaperoned the criticism with praise for his work in getting himself into such a position in the first place, while the player himself described the attempt as “silly”, but the move was on, and Ireland were chasing the game in the second half.
“I wouldn’t have thrown it if it wasn’t (on)…’” the Leinster flanker recalled yesterday before trailing away into a silent moment of ‘what if’’.
“I saw (Andrew Trimble) in the corner and he would have scored if he had got the ball. That’s what was going through my head then but I was probably too close to the ground when I tried to throw it and it didn’t come off. If it had come off, I’d have been the hero. Try throw it earlier next time or not at all, I suppose.”
No dice, then, but that ambition was borne on the back of what was probably the most complete of his performances in a green shirt and one he will wear for only a fifth time this Saturday if he sees game time against Australia. (Spoiler alert: he will.) Brought on for CJ Stander, van der Flier revelled in the open spaces at blindside and it revealed a marauding side to his game that hadn’t been all that evident in his outings against England, Italy, and the Kiwis in Chicago, when he featured on the more familiar openside.
An outstanding try on the burst for Leinster against Bath last December stood as early proof of pace and penetration but the 51 metres made against the world champions last weekend was double the total managed in his first three Test outings.
It was every bit as good a performance as the one in Chicago yet oh so different. He managed just the one carry in Soldier Field but 13 tackles spoke volumes for a mighty defensive effort after replacing the stricken Jordi Murphy. He’s not yet the complete flanker. He admits as much himself but he’s getting there and these two performances against the best the world has to offer have proven to him and to everyone else just what he is capable of as he spies a 24th birthday in April. This is a player who was unfairly tagged as a workhorse on the evidence of his short career so far but he spoke here about a desire to pin together all the strands associated with a traditional seven: ball carrier, poacher, tackler.
The last three weeks have demonstrated he has all that in him and Saturday’s game brought the added bonus of a rare shift alongside Sean O’Brien after the two had been largely kept apart by injury and their preference for the seven shirt. They may well dovetail again this weekend.
“I’ve only played with him two or three times and just whatever way it has worked … I love playing with him. He is unbelievable at poaching.
“We got to link up a couple of times. I made one tackle and he got the poach so it was a bit of fun.”
Simon Easterby, Ireland’s forwards coach, couldn’t have been more complimentary of van der Flier when asked about his contribution. Studious. Hard worker. Team player. Bright future. You get the drift.
It’s worth pointing out van der Flier had made his senior Leinster debut only a month prior to Australia’s last visit to Dublin, in November 2014. Now here he is contemplating a tete-a-tete with David Pocock, Michael Hooper et al.
Just as well he’s a quick learner.
