Meet the man who could have been king

It’s a brisk but bright November morning in Dublin and Ewen McKenzie is chewing the fat with the Irish media about the need to resurrect his side’s fortunes and the requirement that he do it with a certain panache as well.

Close your eyes and it could be Joe Schmidt talking.

It’s no wonder, then, that the former prop and current Australia coach was one of the names bandied about with greatest abandon when Declan Kidney’s contract expired earlier this year and Schmidt had yet to be anointed by the IRFU.