The Hard Calls for #RWC2019: Joe Schmidt on ...

Joe Schmidt On...

Honing in 31 players

“It was one of those typical selection meetings where maybe 20-25 of the players are listed straight away and it’s those ones where you are trying to get balance where it’s very difficult to choose between two players, and two players offer slightly different things, and you’re trying then to narrow down and trying to get the best balance across the squad of the entire 31 because that’s part of what you need to do, because you’ve got to make sure you have cover that’s immediate — even though you can replace players there (in Japan) is obviously a big time delay in that.”

His World Cup captain, Rory Best

“I felt he worked really hard.

“It wasn’t a great game against England and, again, without taking away all of the responsibility from the players, I knew we were heavy-legged, I knew we weren’t going to be at the top of our game.

“If you’re trying to get the balance of ‘when do we most need to play well?’, it’s still in three weeks’ time.

“Nobody wins a Rugby World Cup at a pre-World Cup Test match. We knew it was part of a process but even then it was incredibly disappointing.

“But in that game, I still felt that Rory, despite the lineout not functioning very well, around the park, he did a good job.

“In the last 20 minutes at the weekend (off the bench against Wales last Saturday) I felt he led the scrum, he made a dozen tackles in 20 minutes.

“That’s not a guy who’s miles away from being at his best.”

Omitting Devin Toner

“I’ve coached Dev for 10 years and he’s not just a lineout champion for us, he’s such a good player but he’s also an absolutely quality person.

“That was an incredibly tough conversation yesterday.”

Including Jean Kleyn and Tadhg Beirne

“We probably don’t have a specialist tighthead second row, as such, and again at the start, I said about the balance that we’re looking for across that squad of 31. Jean Kleyn fitted that.

“Tadhg Beirne gives you the versatility of the second row — and he’s teamed up very well with Jean Kleyn in Munster this year — but he also gives you the threat over the ball like a six or seven and he can play in the back row, he obviously did for us on the weekend.”

Kieran Marmion v Luke McGrath

“The two scrum-halves, that was incredibly tough,” Schmidt said. “If you’re going to have a guy who is the quintessential team member, Kieran Marmion is someone you’d hold up as someone who has done some fantastic stuff for us. At scrum-half, but he’s so versatile too and such a good man to have in the environment too. That was such a tough decision, again it’s that balance of past performance. Conor Murray has been a world-leading scrum-half and Luke McGrath has been incredibly good this season. In competition with Kieran Marmion, that was an incredibly tough decision.”

How Garry Ringrose sealed Will Addison’s fate and let in Chris Farrell

“Garry Ringrose played really well on the wing for us (against Wales). We feel that he can cover the back three, he can play full-back as well. He’s got such a good kicking game and we even had him on the bench at the weekend covering 10.

“His versatility really allowed us to say that we’ve got three pure centres (Aki, Henshaw, Farrell) and Garry, who is a very good centre for us but has that versatility to move around the backline.”

And how Andrew Conway also did for Addison

“Andrew Conway had a tough day in England, we were on the back foot a lot of the time. This time (against Wales), he got the ball on the front foot, he picked a few great running lines and there were still some bits of the game he’ll try to improve on, I’m sure.

“The same with Jacob Stockdale, you want guys who can make half-chances into whole tries and I think that’s what Jacob did in his second try and certainly in his first try. I thought Andrew Conway did incredibly well on the inside trail of Jack Carty on the link-up. Talking to Jack afterwards, Andrew called that even before he carried, he felt there was an opportunity there.

“That’s what you want. You want guys who are really keen to be involved and be sharp and smart in their involvements as Andrew was there.”

The fitness of Keith Earls and Joey Carbery

“Keith and Joey trained yesterday and trained well. They’re making the right progress.

“Keith will almost certainly play this weekend and train fully, Joey is further back and we’ll see how he goes.”