Rejigged back three proves value of Joe’s four-year plan

Well, that’s one itch scratched. Partially, anyway.

Joe Schmidt had waited four years to get back to a World Cup. He’d passed the time profitably enough, of course, but there was no doubting how much this would have meant to put to bed the memories of the 2015 quarter-final in Cardiff, when an Irish team, stripped of so much class and experience by injuries and a suspension, had fallen so far short of Argentina.