Joe Schmidt looks to sustain Ireland’s winning routine

Joe Schmidt will not be looking for more heroics this Saturday when the All Blacks come calling once more, just the same old routine.

Backing up that momentous win over the world champions two weeks ago, rather than settling for a singular high and then tailing off next time around, has been very much the theme of Ireland’s preparation for this rematch in Dublin.

Only injury to Jordi Murphy in Chicago prevented Schmidt from yesterday naming the same starting XV he sent out at Soldier Field, and he knows further success can only be gained by sticking to the process and implementing the game plan.

Ireland will be more confident for their first win over New Zealand in 111 years, and will be boosted by the inclusion of Sean O’Brien to the openside flanker role vacated by the try-scoring Murphy. Conversely, the world champions will be reinforced with fit-again world-class locks Brodie Retallick and Sam Whitelock and seething at having their 18-match winning streak brought to an end before they could see out another calendar year as an unbeaten team for the ages.

Not so much as you were, then, but raised stakes for this feature contest of the autumn, with Schmidt’s opposite number, world coach of the year Steve Hansen, even claiming his All Blacks would start tomorrow evening’s game as underdogs.

“You’d love to think that way, wouldn’t you?” Schmidt said in response to his fellow New Zealander’s assertion. “But I wouldn’t suggest that he become a bookmaker.

“I think we’re at about 6/1. Not that we’re allowed to indulge in that, but it’s probably better than the 12/1 or 13/1 we were in Chicago. So, maybe comparatively we’re a little better off, but you certainly wouldn’t put us as favourites. [Against] a team that have won 18 in a row against some of the best teams in the world, and done it by some margin? I think everyone is due a hiccup and I felt we deserved to get our nose in front when we did, the players really rolled their sleeves up and hung in, and managed to protect the lead we had.

“At the same time, I don’t think they’re going to afford us any headstarts this week.”

Fly-half Johnny Sexton pointed out yesterday, after Schmidt had named his matchday squad, that there is a difference between believing you can beat the All Blacks and knowing you can, but he still insisted Ireland would have to be better again.

“It is a little bit of a monkey off the back by getting that first victory against them,” said Sexton. “We’re very much a performance-driven team. Even though we got the win, the review was pretty harsh. We feel we can be better, which is a good thing.

“We know they will be a lot better, so we’ll just go out and try and implement our game plan again, put in the best performance we can and we’ll see where that gets us against the All Blacks, who will definitely turn up again on the day.”

As for backing up the Chicago performance, when Ireland ran in five tries in a 40-29 victory, Sexton added: “We’ve shown at times that we have got over that. Last November [2014] we beat South Africa and Australia back to back and we’ve had other victories back to back, but there’s still an element that we’ve spoken about a little bit, about needing to back it up.

“Really, again, that’s performance driven, in that regard, turning up on the day, making sure emotionally, physically that we’re ready to go and in the right frame of mind as we were last time and then the result will come after that. But that’s all we can influence at the moment and that’s what we talked about.”

Aside from the one change to the starting line-up, with O’Brien coming into the back row, having completed 67 minutes against Canada last weekend in his Test comeback from a serious hamstring injury, there are two changes from the bench which saw off New Zealand. Ultan Dillane, man-of-the-match versus Canada, has not shaken off a sore knee and is replaced on the bench by the returning lock Iain Henderson, while Josh Van der Flier retained his place to keep Peter O’Mahony at bay, the Munster skipper having missed training on Monday, following his 80-minute comeback as captain against Canada.

Paddy Jackson — a late withdrawal from the squad travelling to Chicago — ousted Joey Carbery as fly-half replacement, while Keith Earls failed to dislodge Garry Ringrose as the outside back replacement, having missed training this week with a dead leg.