BERNARD JACKMAN: Perfectionist and practitioner: Joe ends one era but starts another

Joe Schmidt regularly preaches the Aristotle quote to the Leinster players he lives his life by: “We are what we repeatedly do.”

It’s not as easy to influence the daily habits of players at international level as domestic given you only have them for a short time but what Joe will strive for, what all elite teams try to achieve is to make sure excellence becomes a habit and not an act. He looks to create an environment of excellence.

He became the obvious candidate for the job once the IRFU decided not to renew Declan Kidney’s contract. But it wasn’t clear at first that he would apply as he was under contract to Leinster, his uneasy relationship with the IRFU and speculation about a return to New Zealand to be closer to family. He credits the support he received from the Professional Game Board at Leinster that gave him the confidence to enter discussions with the IRFU as he is a loyal man and had never broken a contract before.

Leinster certainly have acted for the greater good of Irish rugby by facilitating Schmidt’s release as he would have been the ideal man to oversea the mini-transition they are about to enter with Nacewa, Sexton and some other departures.

Joe takes on this Irish team at a time when confidence levels aren’t high. He will look to build that confidence through clarity.

Over the next three seasons the general public and his players will hear that word a lot. Joe believes that clarity gives confidence. He will ensure his players and staff have real attention to detail in what they do in all areas and will pick players on form from their domestic matches or training in camp. He believes the quality of the team’s preparation is responsible for the performance and despite being one of the nicest people you can meet in the game off the field he is ruthless and driven on it and in his video and performance reviews.

Much has been made of his goal to make Leinster the best passing team in Europe and how that became reality. Many other teams might have similar goals but few have the persistence to work on the basics day in day out like he does. He has a phenomenal knowledge of each position in the game and it’s almost unheard of for a single person to be head coach, backs coach and defence coach, but he excelled in all three.

He sees himself as a practitioner, not a theorist, and is very hands-on. One of his biggest strengths is that he is solution-based. When he sees oppositions’ strengths or weaknesses he is very good at problem solving and turning that into an opportunity for his team through a technical or tactical tweak. Playing attacking rugby he is also very aware the game is about collisions and will prepare his team to win that battle.

Some pundits have questioned how he will adapt to international rugby having come from a day-to-day working environment at club level where he has had more time to improve players skill levels.

But he will make the step up easily. When I spoke to him about the challenge I faced coming to France and coaching in a foreign language like he had done at Clermont he actually said he felt it benefited him as a coach because in New Zealand he had all these ideas and information in his head and sometimes struggled to give his players clarity on all of them. In France he had to pick the three of four most important points and find out how to say it. He is still using that method.

Today is the start of an exciting era for Irish rugby.