World Cup campaign not put to bed just yet at Leinster

Assistant coach Andrew Goodman is back in Dublin after his secondment to the Samoan squad.

BACK IN THE BUILDING: Backs coach Andrew Goodman during Leinster Rugby media conference at UCD in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Leinster’s Ireland contingent is still weeks away from a competitive return but other ripples from the Rugby World Cup, which finishes on Saturday with a final pairing of New Zealand and South Africa, are noticeable around their Dublin base of operations.

Assistant coach Andrew Goodman is already back in the building after his secondment to a Samoan squad that prepared for the tournament back home in the Pacific, scared the life out of Ireland in Bayonne and then had a mixed bag of it in Pool D.

A comfortable defeat of Chile was followed by a nine-point loss to Argentina, a six-point defeat to Japan and, most frustrating of all maybe, a one-point reversal against an England side that eventually made it to the brink of the final.

“We had high ambitions of being the best Samoan team ever and that meant we had to get out of our pool. We thought we had a realistic chance of doing that and got some good confidence playing against a good Irish side, even if it wasn’t at full strength.

“It was just a couple of games in the middle where we didn’t perform as we could have and should have. It was a proud way to finish against England but it was a game we should have won and it was frustrating that we didn’t have that performance in the games before that.”

Goodman and head coach Leo Cullen during Leinster Rugby squad training at UCD in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Goodman loved the whole experience: the build-up in Samoa itself, the chance to bring his young family there and then to France, and then the lessons he learned as part of the staff in the pressure-cooker environment that is a World Cup.

It sounds like that might be it with Samoa for him. He has a young family now with three kids and add in the switch he made from the Crusaders to Leinster at the start of last season and he thinks maybe its time to spend a bit more of his rare free time at home.

Leinster will be the main beneficiary in rugby terms now that he is back at the day job but Leo Cullen is still operating short-handed at the start of the URC season while Jacques Nienaber sees to one last bit of business in Saint-Denis at the weekend.

This absence of key lieutenants has forced Leinster to lean more on the likes of Emmet Farrell, Kieran Hallett and Sean O’Brien but, while Ireland’s race is run, Goodman has an obvious interest in keeping an eye on his native New Zealand as they chase a fourth title.

His link with this All Blacks side goes deeper than his roots.

Goodman was teaching at Nelson College back home and playing NPC with Tasman three months of the year when he got a call from Joe Schmidt to go play with Leinster in 2012. It was out of the blue. A winning lottery ticket.

“That call literally did change my life and I’m forever grateful to Joe for the opportunity for me to come over here. To be a full-time professional and to have him as a coach. For me, I loved my time under Joe.

“That second year I was injured the whole year. I spent a lot of my time just observing him and the way he coached rugby.

"The feedback coming around him is that he’s been great for the All Black environment, in terms of the detail. The boys are loving what he’s doing there.”

He still uses some of Schmidt’s phrases and templates even now and stresses that the All Blacks attack coach’s “DNA is right across the building” in UCD but there are mixed emotions to their ongoing presence at the global event.

He was gutted that Andy Farrell’s side didn’t make it further, even if it was the All Blacks that sent them home, and the torn allegiances extended to his four-year old son who paid extra attention every time the Ireland captain got his hands on the ball.

Sexton has retired now but that still leaves 17 Ireland players who will report back to Leinster soon and this latest disappointment will only feed into the disappointing losses the province has shipped in Champions Cup and URC knockout games in recent seasons.

That will have to be addressed.

“The mental space now is important, to refresh away from the game, but it is definitely something that you have to talk about,” Goodman agreed.

“You can’t just put it to the side and think that everything is going to be alright.

“You have to talk about these things, be open, have conversations. Then it’s about performing week to week. We can’t be thinking about finals, we have to do our job every week, be dialled down into our detail week to week.

"That will get your confidence back up and get the smiles back on their faces.”