Joe Schmidt is everywhere except front and centre

Schmidt has avoided all dealings with the media since being co-opted onto Ian Foster’s management team. It has fallen to others to speak for, and about, him on weeks like this.

JOE SHOW: Former Ireland head coach - and now New Zealand assistant coach - Joe Schmidt.

Joe Schmidt’s influence is all over the New Zealand team that will meet Ireland in Saturday’s World Cup quarter-final. It’s there to be seen in every game they have played in the last year and every time the doors to training are opened for the media.

The former Ireland head coach covered a significant amount of ground at Tuesday's practice in the Bois de Vincennes, overseeing a ruck drill in one half of the pitch one minute and then migrating towards one goalline area to take in another drill shortly after.

What's missing is the voice.

Schmidt has avoided all dealings with the media since being co-opted onto Ian Foster’s management team in an official capacity after the series loss to Ireland two summers ago so it falls to others to speak for, and about, him on weeks like this.

“Joe has been great,” said forwards coach Jason Ryan. “just driving our game and what we can do better. He’s really challenged the group, as we all have as coaches, and how the All Blacks can be better.” Ryan was asked if his colleague’s intimate knowledge of Irish rugby and some of the players and coaches facing them in Paris this week would count for much but, unlike Foster recently, he played down any such talk.

If there are titbits to be picked up from him about one of the men in green or Ireland’s habits and faults as a collective then it will pale into comparison with the impact he has had inside the All Blacks camp this last year and a bit.

Time and again players have talked up the former Leinster coach’s influence and if players are always apt to speak positively about men who can decide their immediate futures then there is an authenticity in the depth and angles involved.

“Joe just sees the game in a very detailed view and I think, especially with us backs, his work in sort of noticing trends in other teams’ attack and defence is what separates him,” said Rieko Ioane. 

“And just the detail he goes into.

“I think for us, trying to find those one per centers can be quite hard, but with Joe, he makes the view of the game a lot easier by the way he understands it. Yeah, he has definitely helped us quite a bit.” 

Aaron Smith gave an insight into a coach who identifies a player’s strengths and then doubles down on them and, like Ioane, an operator who can see further down the rabbit hole and into the minutiae of a player’s DNA.

“He always has clips to show you if you ask, so you gotta be careful what you ask him because it could cost you 20 minutes,” the scrum-half joked. “For the last 18 months, I have really enjoyed connecting with him.” 

Schmidt aside, there was another positive update on the well-being of tighthead prop Tyrel Lomax who strained medial ligaments in his knee against Uruguay last Thursday but it is by no means clear whether he will be fit for the weekend either.

So much of the focus on Tuesday centred on the recent relationship between the All Blacks and Ireland and, specifically, the manner in which it has flipped since that first, historic Irish win in Chicago in 2016.

Smith was the obvious man to ask about it.

His Test debut was made eleven years ago in Auckland when Ireland provided the opposition and he played the next two Tests against the same opponent that summer too. Two were blowouts, including a 60-0 and the other was a lucky three-point win.

That series summed up the nature of the relationship back then – the odd nailbiter interrupting major Kiwi superiority – and the All Blacks have inflicted heavy defeats more recently even as Ireland have edged the head-to-heads five-three since Soldier Field.

“I think there is a mutual respect there, for sure. Obviously, there is a lot of experience in both groups, guys who have played each other a lot, so I’d say there would be a little bit of mingling but I think everyone knows the stakes of what’s riding on this game.

“I know in 2019 [after New Zealand won the World Cup quarter-final meeting] there was quite good camaraderie afterwards, connecting, so I wouldn’t call it a hatred or anything like that. There is a definite mutual respect. Two proud nations, so I’d say there would be respect there, but happiness and pain for how the result goes.”