Schmidt’s side of the fence now the only place to be

Joe Schmidt’s worst nightmare? It isn’t Billy Vunipola smashing through the Irish defence in Twickenham tomorrow. It isn’t even those seven “systems failures” against the All Blacks that allowed Ryan Crotty to break Irish hearts back in November.

No, Joe Schmidt’s greatest nightmare is a kid called Darren.

The Ireland coach was a headmaster in New Zealand at the time. The story goes that the girls’ schools near his own had been unexpectedly released from their educational bonds for the rest of the day. Their first instinct was to march en masse for the boys’ enclosure down the road and instigate a clamour for a similar release.