A tactical battle the Irish boss won easily

Saturday September 24, 1988 at Palmerston North – the first and last time Joe Schmidt bumped into Warren Gatland in New Zealand’s National Provincial Championship.

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.