You can take the boy, or the 52-year-old man, out of New Zealand but you can’t take New Zealand out of the boy, or seemingly, out of the 52-year-old man either.
The Grand Slam was the star on the top of Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt’s coaching tree as the 2018 championship now shines above, or maybe just to the side, of Ireland’s win over New Zealand in Chicago, the three Six Nations titles and the two Heineken Cups as the defining achievements of his coaching career.
By any conceivable metric, Schmidt is Ireland’s greatest rugby coach of all time.
He’s been lauded by a number of Ireland internationals as the brightest rugby mind they have ever come across in their careers and he’s been a valued employee of Irish Rugby for the last eight years now, but does that necessarily mean that his future lies here?
IRFU Director of Performance David Nucifora revealed after Schmidt’s last contract extension in October 2016 that ‘New Zealand did everything they possibly could to get Joe back that last time, absolutely everything’, while New Zealand Rugby chief executive Steve Tew said last summer that the NZR have kept in contact with Schmidt about the pending All Blacks job.
Schmidt has remained quiet on questions linking him back to the New Zealand job, with Nucifora claiming last year that ‘there’s no point in having a discussion with him that he doesn’t want to have’, but if Tew and the NZR are thinking after the Rugby World Cup then we can assume Schmidt is too.
Schmidt is unlikely to elaborate too much on his future between now and the Rugby World Cup but the reality is is that he is off contract following the tournament.
Tew namechecked Jamie Joseph, Warren Gatland and Pat Lam as potential candidates alongside Schmidt to replace Hansen next year, but after a win over New Zealand in Chicago, another Six Nations title and a Grand Slam, you would assume that the Ireland coach has catapulted to the top of a pile of outstanding resumes.
Schmidt might be coy on his future with Ireland but after the Grand Slam win he had no problem looking back into the past.
“I think Bay of Plenty had been trying to win it for over 100 years and so that was the first really special one,” said Schmidt when asked where this Grand Slam ranks alongside his other coaching achievements.
“Yeah, it’s hard to equate anything with this. When I was a kid I used to watch Five Nations on TV and think these places were on a whole different planet with those massive crowds. It’s pretty hard when you’re born in Kawakawa, 1400 people and you’re shifted to the metropolis of Woodville, 1600 people, it’s huge.
“This is massive and it’s massive for the group of players that we’ve got. I’d have to say I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be involved in some great management groups and some great coaching groups and even more so the players themselves.”
Schmidt was asked about where the Grand Slam ranks among his achievements and within one minute he’s talking about Kawakawa and Woodville. You can take the boy out of New Zealand…..
Maybe he’s trying to be modest, maybe Bay Of Plenty’s Ranfurly shield win still resonates with him from his time there as an assistant coach, but it’s hard to imagine that Schmidt left the Auckland Blues as an assistant coach in 2007 and thought to himself ‘I’ll come back here at the end of the next decade and take the All Blacks job. That’ll do nicely’.
I’m sure a head coaching job at a Top 14, Premiership or PRO 12 club would have been a much more realistic goal for him at that point in his career, but the reality is the goalposts have now moved for Schmidt and for this Irish team.
The unprecedented levels of success have changed expectations for all parties.
Schmidt may not want to look past the 2019 Rugby World Cup but the IRFU better assume that he’s thinking about it as it’s a path that every All Blacks coach has gone down this decade.
Steve Hansen coached Wales from 2002 to 2004 before taking a job as an All Blacks assistant where he would later be promoted to head coach.
Before Hansen, Graham Henry went from the Blues to Wales to the British & Irish Lions – and then eventually – to the All Blacks.
Before Henry, John Mitchell served time as a forwards coach for both England and Ireland before going on to earn the New Zealand job further down the line.
And before Mitchell there was Wayne Smith, who served as Treviso’s coach before going on to coach the Crusaders and then the All Blacks.
All four coached in Europe in some capacity while Hansen and Henry, the two coaches that have stewarded New Zealand to unprecedented success over the last 14 years, both served as head coaches of a Six Nations side before they walked into the New Zealand set up.
Judging by the NZR’s last four appointments for the position of All Blacks head coach, it would seem that you would need to have some experience in Europe to coach the national team.
Schmidt may have needed that experience when he left the Blues over a decade ago, but if he is to return next year after the Rugby World Cup, he will do so after winning every available honour outside of the Rugby World Cup, which, in light of last weekend, he could yet achieve.
Schmidt traveled the world, won trophies, became an Irish citizen and brought an unprecedented level of success to these shores, but does the Kawakawa kid really turn down New Zealand if they come knocking? Especially with Hansen out of the picture.
There’s a chance New Zealand Rugby considers Warren Gatland, there’s a chance Schmidt stays and continues to raise his family here, but the fact is Ireland now need Schmidt more than he needs them.
Schmidt may have tipped that particular scale in his favour after the 2014 Six Nations win, or after the 2015 Six Nations win, or maybe even after the 2016 November series with New Zealand, but after the 2019 Grand Slam he’s now the obvious front runner for the New Zealand job.
Ireland’s success has largely been tied to a man that will spend hours upon hours dissecting the Springboks line-out, or watching Grenoble matches in the Top 14 so that he can send Chris Farrell markings of clips where he can improve, or doing the same for Rory O’Loughlin with Leinster, guys who were/are at the peripheries of his side.
The Ireland job was a natural progression for Schmidt after steering Leinster to two Heineken Cups and a PRO12 title but maybe the All Blacks job is a natural progression from the Ireland job for him, even with the recent success.
With almost nothing left to prove outside of a Rugby World Cup final berth, how long is it before Schmidt swaps Carton House and Kildare for Kawakawa, Woodville and the All Blacks?
