Ireland’s players have the masterful coach they need
The more we’ve come to learn about him, the more we’ve come to admire him.
What really tipped it for this column was our choice of reading in recent days. Last week we dusted down Leo Cullen’s A Captain’s Story, by Irish Sports Publishing, to get a greater understanding of his gaffer at Leinster, while also dipping in and out of Daniel Coyle’s The Talent Code and its companion book, The Little Book of Talent.
Were Cullen and Coyle to ever have crossed paths to talk about Schmidt, they’d have left Keith Wood and the other IRFU blazers in little doubt that they were pursuing the coach that Ireland or anyone else should seek.
In Coyle’s work, he points out that anyone who wants to develop talent should seek out a coach that will challenge, even somewhat scare, them, and avoid someone who “reminds you of a courteous waiter”.
Although Schmidt’s civility and decency is apparent in everything he does, there is a direct, business-like edge to him in his dealings with his players.
Cullen noticed that the first time Schmidt addressed the Leinster players collectively, he spent just 15 seconds with the formalities. “Hi... I’m Joe Schmidt... I’ll try to get to know everyone in the next few weeks. Best of luck...SEE YOU LATER!’”
Over the following weeks he would indeed sit down with every single player, but, as Cullen observed, “they were not long, soul-searching conversations — they were fast and to the point.”
Training sessions were the same. As Cullen would write in his fine account of Leinster’s 2010-2011 Heineken Cup-winning-season, “Joe is all ‘Bang...Bang...Bang...DONE!’”
That was just the way Cullen liked it and it would be just how Coyle would want it too. In studying the master coaches from sport to music, he’s noticed that they’re invariably hugely action-oriented. Rather than initially spending a lot of time chatting to their student or player, they prefer to immediately jump into a few activities to get a better feel for them.
At times the directness of such coaches can unnerve their subjects, especially starting out. That was certainly the case for Cullen.
When he was designated to attend that season’s Heineken Cup launch, Schmidt let him know it was only because he had been club captain in Michael Cheika’s time. “We’re not sure how the year is going to go but we’ll put you down for it (the press day).”
A few weeks later when Cullen popped his head into Schmidt’s office at Riverview to declare he was fully recovered from an injury and ready to start against Saracens in Wembley, Schmidt instantly replied, “Good ... You’ll be on the bench.”
Then when Cullen did start a few weeks later in another Heineken Cup game against Clermont and felt he had performed well, Schmidt called him into his office to give him quite a hard time about the number of penalties he’d conceded.
“(It) only reaffirmed for me how absolute, precise and tough he is in his analysis of the game,” Cullen would write.
“I was happy that Joe was such a coach but when you’re on the receiving end of sharpish criticism, it can be tough to listen to. Such is the nature of our business.”
Such is the nature of top-class coaching, Coyle might have added. As he’s discovered, encounters with great coaches tend to illicit respect, admiration as well as a streak of fear.
They also simply love teaching fundamentals, often spending entire sessions on one small but critical detail, again something Cullen and Coyle would concur is a hallmark of Schmidt’s brilliance.
“Joe, in my opinion,” Cullen would baldly declare, “is the purest rugby coach in terms of technique and application I have ever come across.”
Yet as well as being demanding, he found Schmidt hugely positive too.
The best coaches are positive-demanding coaches and invariably use short, clear directions.
Cardiff 2011 was a classic example of Schmidt’s mastery of such nuances. Leinster famously trailed Northampton by 16 points at half-time in that Heineken Cup decider. Schmidt had reason to curse the air blue. Instead he did what all great leaders do — he put on the face that his team needed to see and spoke the words they needed to hear.
“Joe looks calm,” Cullen noticed. “Joe is speaking slowly.” There was no panic in his voice.
He just told them they just needed to hold onto the ball. He wanted them to start making their tackles count and to keep “moving our feet in defence” and stop standing still.
Then, after sending the forwards off to their specialist coach to get further precise, technical instruction to rectify the scrum, he announced to the whole group, boldly, defiantly, convincingly, “When we come back from this, it’ll be ... FOLKLORE!”
As we now know, they did come back, in no small part because he told them they would rather than could come back.
And now he is an international coach.
At times some Irish players might not feel they got the coach they wanted.
What they have got is the masterful coach that they needed.
