How Joe Schmidt’s team became guinea pigs for Olympic experience

Hideyuki Harada has been mayor of Fukuroi for 19 years. Six times he has been elected to his post. This is a man who knows a thing or two about how to handle people and he is charm personified as a dozen or so Irish journalists join him at city hall the day before Japan and Ireland meet in their World Cup Pool A encounter ten minutes down the road.

There are no historic, cultural or economic ties between this city of just under 90,000 people in the Shizuoka Prefecture and Ireland but the presence here of Joe Schmidt’s team, and the decision by the Olympic Council of Ireland to use the area as a pre-Olympic base camp next year, have unleashed a wave of enthusiasm for our little nation.