Joe Schmidt plans for every eventuality
For all the hype surrounding a St Patrick’s Day championship decider with England at Twickenham, this weekend’s reunion with Warren Gatland’s Welsh side represents a considerable challenge to Ireland’s aspirations of regaining a title last won in 2015.
Schmidt’s teams have not beaten Wales since his first season as head coach in 2014, when a 26-3 victory at the Aviva Stadium in round two was one of four wins in the first of back-to-back championships.
Ireland lost 23-16 in Cardiff the following year before securing the trophy the following week with a 40-10 win over Scotland in Edinburgh on a dramatic final day and since then have been held to a 16-16 draw at home in 2016 and a 22-9 Principality Stadium defeat last March.
This season, resources have been stretched in midfield and the back row following season-ending injuries to Robbie Henshaw and Josh van der Flier on top of pre-tournament absentees including centres Jared Payne and Garry Ringrose, and back-rowers Sean O’Brien, Jamie Heaslip, Rhys Ruddock, and Tommy O’Donnell.
Both Ringrose and O’Brien could ease those problems if they prove their fitness this week but that would mean the head coach parachuting the Leinster pair into the national set-up without any preparatory in-game conditioning.
Schmidt recognises Saturday’s game will be a huge test of his squad’s strength in depth against a Wales team gradually welcoming back a number of frontline players and having to this point played exceptionally well without the majority of its 2017 Lions contingent, including Sam Warburton, Jon Davies, Dan Biggar and Liam Williams.
Gatland’s injury-hit team swatted Scotland aside in their opening game and shackled defending champions England for long periods of their encounter at Twickenham in round two before going down to a narrow 12-6 defeat nine days ago and have embraced a more expansive game this season compared to their more direct style of previous campaigns.
Ireland have already had to win in different circumstances in the current Six Nations, overcoming a defensively solid French team in the rain at Stade de France in round one before hammering Italy in ideal conditions on a dry Dublin day a week later.
After a three-day training camp in Athlone last week with a reduced squad that included Chris Farrell running in Henshaw’s place at outside centre during last Thursday’s open training session at Buccaneers RFC, Ireland boss Schmidt believes the players he does have at his disposal are more than capable of coping with anything the Welsh or the weather can throw at them.
“Every game is different, we don’t know what the conditions will be yet so we are not going to get too locked into any particular way of playing,” Schmidt said in Athlone following training with the Irish U20s that was held under varying weather conditions.
“What we will try to do and even in conditions like this, we had the sunshine, we had the horizontal hail, we try to change our game up to suit the conditions, to suit where we are on the pitch, to suit how we think the defence are going to fan out or tighten up and then go from there. We’ve got great decision-makers. You’d be surprised how much freedom players have to play.”
With a side heavily populated by Scarlets players who last season became the first team to win an away play-off semi-final, against Leinster at the RDS, before thrillingly dismantling Munster in the Guinness PRO12 final at the Aviva, this year’s Wales are certainly playing with more freedom than in previous Six Nations.
“I think all teams change,” Schmidt said of Gatland’s evolving gameplan. “A lot of the coaching is done by his staff. Their defence, we know they are going to work really hard for each other. They have a great defensive ethic. They are always very hard to break down.
“England got a couple of tries, putting the ball in behind them on a very slippery day but they didn’t get more than 12 points. That is pretty tough going. Scotland got seven points.
“It is very meagre returns because that’s the way (defence coach) Shaun Edwards has them functioning.
“On the other side of the ball, (attack coach) Rob Howley had them humming against Scotland. And I thought they attacked really well against England in conditions that were pretty tough.
“We would expect an incredibly resilient defence, certainly 13 guys on their feet, in your face, coming hard at you. We’ve got to prepare for that and be sound in what we do. At the same time, they’ve got their forwards playing a lot more.”
More expansive or just as physical, whichever Welsh gameplan is deployed on Saturday, Schmidt is expecting a close-run contest and having gained just that one draw since Ireland’s most recent victory in 2014, perhaps a bit of good fortune.
“Whether it is played over there or here, they have been very tight fixtures and maybe we are due some margin of luck to fall our way and get a result against them.
“We don’t want it to be luck, we want it to be that we make sure that we work hard enough to earn whatever we get from them.”
Natwest Six Nations: Ireland v Wales
Aviva Stadium, 2.15pm
Glen Jackson (New Zealand)
TV3, ITV
Ireland 10/11 Wales 10/11 Draw 19/1
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