A tactical battle the Irish boss won easily
Never in his wildest dreams could Joe have imagined that their next duel would result in his presiding over Ireland’s destruction of Gatland’s Wales. The notion would have sounded too ridiculous for words the day Waikato, with a young Gatland hooking, condemned Manawatu, with a younger Schmidt at centre, to relegation.
How they got from there to here took a shade more than a quarter of a century – Gatland to Wales via Galwegians, Connacht, Ireland, Wasps and Waikato; Schmidt to Ireland via Bay of Plenty, Auckland, Clermont and Leinster.
All the ballyhoo about O’Driscoll and his discarding by Gatland from the Lions finale turned out to be a complete irrelevance. This, with apologies to Jack Nicholson’s retired insurance salesman, was all About Schmidt.
His team didn’t just outplay the champions, they out-witted them. Of all the individual Irish victories over their Welsh opposite numbers none proved as influential as Schmidt’s over his compatriot. As head-to-heads go, Joe won hands down. When they weren’t being bombarded by precision kicking, Wales were mauled to bits by Paul O’Connell’s pack. Gatland, so used to his team bludgeoning the opposition, had no alternative to the Big Bash.
Schmidt to coach the Lions in 2017?
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The last time the tournament witnessed a double sending-off, the referee, Ireland’s Stephen Hilditch, had to be escorted from the field by armed police.
Jaco Peyper, below, avoided a similar fate in Paris yesterday after giving red cards to the butting substitute props, Italy’s Michele Rizzo and Rabah Slimani of France. It was all rather tame compared to the fury howling around Hilditch across the capital at the Parc des Princes during a riotous France- England match in 1992. The fearless Belfast headmaster, without any recourse to technology, not that he needed video confirmation of his own eyes, dismissed two thirds of the French front row – Gregoire Lascube and Vincent Moscato on separate incidents. Neither played for France again.
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News, as the saying goes, is not when it happens but when it breaks – a good excuse for a belting tale about the most controversial punch during a Wales-Ireland match.
Now, 45 years after flattening Ireland’s Noel Murphy with an uppercut in front of a youthful Prince of Wales, Wales captain Brian Price has gone into the confessional and come clean about the day Ireland went to Cardiff one win away from a Grand Slam.
“There was a Murphy Plan – let’s admit that at the start,” Price told Radio Wales. “It was simple enough. Gareth Edwards would pick the ball up from the scrum, go round the side where Noel would tackle him. Then we’d all do a little bit of trampling on Noel.” And then a Price uppercut put Murphy out for the count. “I got the ball back from a line-out and then found some fingers around my eyes,” Price said. “I turned round and lashed out. The referee (the late Doug McMahon of Scotland) looked at me and I was thinking: ‘I’m going. In front of the Prince, I’m going.’ Thankfully, the ref realised it was done in retaliation, warned me and gave Ireland a penalty.
“A lot of threats came my way from Willie-John McBride and other Irish forwards but they don’t worry me. I was just thankful I hadn’t been given my marching orders.”
Who knows, had Price gone, as he ought to have done, Ireland would probably have left with the Slam. Instead they had to wait another 40 years…
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Scotland could always be relied upon to annoy the Sassenachs at Murrayfield. Even when they weren’t losing Grand Slam deciders (1990 and 2000), blundering defeats on successive subsequent visits led directly or indirectly to Andy Robinson and Brian Ashton losing their jobs as head coach.
The English would find all manner of complaint, from the cramped state of their dressing-room to pipe bands interfering with their warm-up.
Even in defeat, the Scots invariably managed to get up English noses but, sadly, not any more. Apart from a worm-eaten pitch, the hosts, coached by Scott Johnson above, hardly made a nuisance of themselves and now they still haven’t scored a try against the auld enemy in Edinburgh since Simon Danielli in 2004. England won by 20 when it ought to have been 40.
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No 20-20 vision was required in Dublin on Saturday to see that James Hook has become The Invisible Man of the Six Nations. Only the Welsh management can explain why. As his team went from bad to worse, Gatland’s refusal to give his most creative player a chance to dig Wales out of their hole begged a nagging question: Why pick him? Gatland emptied his bench save for Hook when his beaten team were crying out for something different.
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Predictions can make mugs of even the shrewdest of judges as the views of two former Wales captains about Saturday’s match goes to show: Phil Bennett: “It will come down to goalkicking. Leigh Halfpenny is world-class. Jonny Sexton can be hit-and-miss. Halfpenny to win it for Wales.”
Gwyn Jones: “Wales have the psychological edge over Ireland and will squeak home in a nail-biting match.”
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Team of the weekend
15: Rob Kearney (Ireland).
14: Andrew Trimble (Ireland).
13: Brian O’Driscoll (Ireland).
12: Gordon D’Arcy (Ireland).
11: Dave Kearney (Ireland).
10: Jonny Sexton (Ireland).
9: Conor Murray (Ireland).
1: Cian Healy (Ireland).
2: Rory Best (Ireland).
3: Mike Ross (Ireland).
4: Devin Toner (Ireland).
5: Paul O’Connell (Ireland).
6: Peter O’Mahony (Ireland).
7: Chris Henry (Ireland).
8: Jamie Heaslip (Ireland).
And the best of the rest? Mike Brown (England); Yoann Huget (France), Luther Burrell (England), Wesley Fofana (France), Jonny May (England); Jules Plisson (France), Danny Care (England); Alberto De Marchi (Italy), Dimitri Szarzewski (France), Dan Cole (England); Joe Launchbury (do.), Joshua Furno (Italy); Tom Wood (England), Chris Robshaw (do.), Louis Picamoles (France).
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