Schmidt revels in clarity of thought
Johnny Sexton’s monstrous drop goal, deep into added time and the conclusion of an incredible sequence of 41 phases, had rescued his previously impotent Ireland side from almost certain defeat against a scratch French side and saved this NatWest 6 Nations campaign from a fall at the first hurdle with a rare victory in Paris.
To think that Sexton, who had kicked four penalties and missed one in the 63rd minute, had come within a whisker of being replaced by inexperienced fly-half Joey Carbery after receiving treatment for cramp just a couple of minutes earlier.
Carbery would have been asked to perform the same role he had on his debut, steering Ireland home against the All Blacks in Chicago in November 2016 . Yet he had never needed to put himself front and centre in the way Sexton did as the 32-year-old stepped up to the mark at Stade de France.
“We had Joey up ready to go,” Schmidt said.
“I mean, Joey has steered the ship home in the past. Maybe not on as big a stage as this but it was still a fairly big stage for us. So it is one of those things where you say look, we are on the cusp of it, give us a moment, and then the physio said ‘Johnny feels good, he feels he can continue’. So I’m glad we let him.”
Instead of facing into the demoralising grind of chasing title rivals for the next six weeks and praying they slip up, as had been the case in the last two seasons following a draw with Wales and defeat 12 months ago to Scotland, Ireland can now approach three home games against Italy, Wales and Scotland with the confidence that can only be derived from winning.
And all after France’s replacement fly-half Anthony Belleau had missed the late penalty opportunity that would have given his team a four-point lead, putting them 16-12 up with the clock winding down and forcing Ireland to engineer a game-winning try that had not looked likely for the preceding 77 minutes.
As storybook finishes go, it was Roy of the Rovers getting a team assist from Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America.
Ireland regrouped after Belleau’s miss and through accuracy, audacity and sheer nerve moved the ball from inside their own 22 to a position on the French 10-metre line, behind which Sexton was waiting to launch his glory kick from a seemingly implausible distance of 45 metres.
Yes, you can be assured head coach Schmidt was
relieved.
“Massive. No (not ecstasy), just relief, because if you lose your first game, you are playing catch up the whole way and it is so tough. For us, we know our next three games are at home and there’s nothing given there but there is a little bit of security being at home and getting through something like that, I think it helps build a group together.
“It does strengthen the team bond and hopefully that will give them the resolve and the resilience that is required, because it is such a tough competition, that we know we are going to be in similar s ituations, maybe not right at the end of the game, but similar situations that we are going to have to try to fight our way through.”
How they fought through in those closing seconds left Schmidt full of admiration for his players.
“To work from a drop out 22 where you are about 16 metres out from your own line when you take it, for Iain Henderson to take that and for us to build the phases from there. To have the audacity to have a (Sexton) crosskick involved and for Keith Earls to make no contest of it – he was going to claim that no matter what; I felt there was clarity of thought.
“And then some of the appeals to the referee when guys were lying in the way, it just made it look to me that it was going to be impossible. My thoughts were that we could not score with seven, eight, nine-second rucks. We could not score a try but that did not stop Johnny knocking over a drop goal.”
Ireland had succeeded “by a whisker,” said the Ireland boss.
“It is those moments that are so skinny that you can win or lose by such narrow margins and to win by that narrow margin – I am not really talking about the score, I am more talking about the moments. It had ticked over the 80 minutes and the game was all but dead and buried. So I felt it was unbelievably accurate, hard-working and skilful to achieve what they did.”
The reality, however, is that Ireland will have to play much, much better, if they are to prevent a third England championship in succession and regain the title Schmidt’s teams won in his first two seasons at the helm in 2014 and 15.
The first of those had been secured with a dramatic victory in Paris and the second had involved beating the French in Dublin in another game in which Ireland failed to score a try.
“I’ll take any omen we can get right now because I know how tough it can be,” Schmidt said, before acknowledging that there are positives to take from a performance that did not produce any clear-cut try-scoring opportunities.
This was hard-fought and dogged and those are qualities every bit as necessary to Six Nations glory as the glamourous backline moves Ireland will look to create in better conditions than those produced by the persistent rain which fell on Stade de France.
“When you have to fight as hard as we did today and we didn’t get the tries and you don’t get the flash finish that you like, you have got to roll your sleeves up and work a little bit harder to make sure you create those...
“...The longer and more attritional the game became it was just getting harder and harder. there was a lot of one-out carries from them and we resorted to it as well as the game got slower and the rucks got slower because as soon as you started to make two and three passes you were getting knocked behind the advantage line and it was just too hard to work from back there.”
Ireland must thank their lucky stars that when all other avenues have been blocked, they have a player like Sexton to get the job done.
G Palis; T Thomas, R Lamerat, H Chavancy, V Vakatawa; M Jalibert (A Belleau, 30), M Machenaud (A Dupont, 68-76); J Poirot (D Priso, 55), G Guirado – captain (A Pelissié, 74), R Slimani (C Gomes Sa, 55), S Vahaamahina, A Iturria (P Gabrillagues, 61), W Lauret (M Tauleigne, 68), Y Camara, K Gourdon.
B Fall.
R Kearney; K Earls, R Henshaw, B Aki, J Stockdale (F McFadden, 74); J Sexton, C Murray; C Healy (J McGrath, 60), R Best – captain (S Cronin, 67), T Furlong (John Ryan, 70), I Henderson, James Ryan (D Toner, 67), P O’Mahony, J van der Flier (D Leavy, 36), CJ Stander.
L McGrath, J Carbery.
Nigel Owens (Wales)
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