Enemies tomorrow but coaching staff are kindred spirits

They may be trying to end each other’s World Cups tomorrow but both Steve Hansen and Joe Schmidt have revealed the camaraderie that exists between the New Zealand and Ireland coaching staffs ahead of their quarter-final at Tokyo Stadium.

The two New Zealanders go head-to-head for the fourth time since Schmidt became a Test head coach, replacing Declan Kidney as Ireland boss in 2013. He and fellow New Zealander Hansen have two wins each with Ireland winning the most recent encounter last November with a 16-9 victory in Dublin.

“You earn respect from other people and they earn yours,” All Blacks boss Hansen said yesterday. “You get the odd opportunity to meet up away from the battlefield.

“They’re like-minded people, aren’t they? They’re trying to improve a team that they’re in charge of and make the most of their time with those athletes.

“We’ve met up with the Irish guys plenty of times in Dublin. I know Andy (Farrell, defence coach) really well and I know Joe well. (Scrum coach) Greg Feek’s another one in their team and (forwards coach) Simon Easterby, I know through my time in Wales.

If you hang around long enough, you get to know most of them. Once we get down to the park, for 80 minutes we’ll go for it. Afterwards, you’ve just got to accept it. Sport, like life, is not always fair. Sometimes you’re going to get the rub of the green, sometimes you’re not.

Schmidt said the two victories over the All Blacks since 2016 had taken away Ireland’s ability to catch Hansen and his assistants Ian Foster, Mike Cron and Scott McLeod unawares.

“We’re certainly not going to sneak up on them any more, we’re not going to surprise them.

“I think they are well aware of how we play and what they are going to do to combat that, and what they are going to put into their own armoury to make sure that we are chasing them about.

“I wouldn’t be a great believer in that you learn more from your losses, you learn more from every experience. There are so many variables that go into a result in a Test match that I learn from every win, loss or draw that we have, just because you get that little bit more information about an individual player, or how this sequence works or how that defensive map went at that particular time.

“So I’ve got huge respect for Steve Hansen, Ian Foster, the full coaching staff. Mike Cron has been there a long time, seen a lot of big games, he’s creative around the lineout as well as the scrum and how to manipulate opponents.

“So there’s a host of challenges for us. Scott McLeod spent three days in our camp many moons ago, so he’ll be very aware of how we function, and he’s now looking at how they are going to function against us.

“Those are the tight circles rugby works in, everybody knows everybody else pretty well, and so I’ve no doubt they’ve got a few things cooked up that we haven’t seen before that we’re going to find really challenging.”