Coaches back Carbery’s ‘surrender kick’ to save bonus point

Joey Carbery’s decision to kick the ball dead and end the game when a draw with Japan was still possible has been defended by Joe Schmidt and assistant coach Simon Easterby.

With the Japanese gong having marked the end of 80 minutes in Shizuoka on Saturday and the host nation leading 19-12, Ireland were pinned behind their own tryline and facing a drive up the entire length of the field to scrape a draw with a converted try but Carbery launched a long kick that found touch and ended the game, settling for a losing bonus point.

That was fine with head coach Schmidt and Easterby, both of whom took the long view that the losing bonus point could prove vital in the final shake-up for quarter-final places in Pool A.

“Potentially the bonus point could be really important,” Schmidt said on Saturday night while Easterby yesterday endorsed that view.

“Listen, he was in the in-goal. Earlsy did an incredible job to get back and make that tackle. We could have had a penalty. The referee gave a knock-on against us and they had a couple of scrums and the clock was ticking.

“We will back the players whatever they decide. That point could well serve us well down the line. The players are under pressure in that situation. We are still chasing to try and recover from the position we were in, but the decision was the right one and we will probably come back and look at that and think ‘that was a great decision.’ Especially based on where we were in the game and what might have been had Earlsy not got back and made that tackle.”