KIERAN SHANNON: Why O’Connell will respect Schmidt’s remarks

Schmidt was seeing a bigger picture, the game itself, and the importance parents feel that it is a game safe enough for their kids to play.

When it came to the Leinster supporters, Joe Schmidt got off to a shaky enough start. In three of his first four games in charge, the team lost. Some of those defeats were more than losses. Treviso pummelled them. So did Leicester in a pre-season game. While there was an appreciation that it was early days, there was also a fear that the team Michael Cheika had built had been handed over to the wrong pair of hands.

With the players it was different. They liked and respected him from the start. His methods. His philosophy.