Joe Schmidt: Two wins the ideal platform to take on tough challenges ahead

There is always a bottom line in sport and for Ireland this weekend it is clearly beating Italy and notching a first win of this RBS 6 Nations championship.

Which means there is no room for experimentation as far as Joe Schmidt is concerned.

The head coach yesterday ignored the clamour for new blood in these final two games of the campaign and instead named a team to face the point-less Italians in Dublin this Saturday with as much experience as he could muster.

Chiefly he resisted calls to reintroduce Jared Payne as a full-back in the absence of the injured Rob Kearney and thus continue with the new-look centre pairing of Stuart McCloskey and Robbie Henshaw that impressed in the 21-10 defeat by England at Twickenham 12 days ago.

So while there were changes, they saw Payne resume at outside centre, Henshaw return to inside centre and Simon Zebo replace Kearney at full-back.

McCloskey did not make the bench, Zebo’s place covering the outside backs going to the more versatile Fergus McFadden as Schmidt stuck with his preference for multi-positional replacements, also selecting Ian Madigan to cover 10 and 12, which meant no place for fly-half Paddy Jackson.

There are valid reasons for each of those decisions as Schmidt yesterday explained but with Ireland’s involvement in this Six Nations reduced to a battle for fourth or at best third place in the final standings, the window of opportunity to broaden the depth of experience ahead of this summer’s challenging three-Test tour to South Africa and two November appointments with world champions New Zealand has effectively been shut.

Schmidt, though, was more than prepared to stand his ground, and aside from referring to the impossible task of replacing the now retired Paul O’Connell and Brian O’Driscoll, he argued he had done plenty of blooding, handing debuts to 21 players since becoming head coach 30 months ago.

“Sometimes I get confused about what else you need to build into developing players,” he added.

There will, though, be no change for change’s sake.

“I think we have to get a win. That’s the bottom line. We’re judged on our results and we judge ourselves on performance but if our performance is good enough then you’ve got to be able to get the result at the end of it.”

Schmidt added: “I said after last game, we can’t quite buy a trick at the moment and we probably haven’t had a few things go our way, but that’s always going to happen.

“That’s sport. What you’ve got to do is be good enough to make sure that enough of what you control goes your way, so when those bounces don’t go your way or the decisions don’t go your way, you’ve safeguarded yourself against what would be a shocker for us not to get something on the board this weekend.”

Having guided Ireland to consecutive RBS 6 Nations titles, Schmidt admitted the current campaign had so far been “frustrating and disappointing”, before adding: “But at the same time I’m still energised by the opportunity that we have left in this championship. If we win our two games, then we still have a chance to finish in the top half of the Championship. There’s still lots for players to play for, there’s opportunities to travel to South Africa in the summer and then there’s a huge autumn awaiting us.

“In the context of what we’ve got coming up in 2016, there’s still so much to play for that it’s hard not to be enthusiastic and energised by it and that’s the next two weeks and beyond.

“This has been our most challenging Championship in trying to put band aids on things a little bit, in trying to put things back together and having guys moving in and out of the team has made it more difficult. We’ve had the luxury of really good continuity through the last two Championships and you saw the benefit of that.

He continued: “If we can manage to get these last two wins, it will be the right sort of platform for us to take on some of the huge challenges.”

Schmidt’s optimism is also founded in the returns before season’s end of his long-term injured, O’Mahony, O’Brien, Iain Henderson and Tommy Bowe and he added of his current selection:

“The challenge for these guys this weekend and next is to say, ‘well they’re names outside the squad. I want to be in the squad. I want to grab the jersey’. Hopefully, we see evidence of that on Saturday.”

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