A victory that was 111 years in the making was planned in just a handful of training sessions.
Of course, Joe Schmidt would have been plotting a way to beat his native country for quite some time, but the Ireland coach had very little time with his team in the week building up to Saturday’s victory over New Zealand.
Ireland beat the world champions 40-29, the country’s first win over the All Blacks in 29 attempts, and they also achieved the victory in unique circumstances.
Chicago’s Soldier Field represented a fantastic stage for Ireland to make history, particularly given the game was played at the end of a week of celebrations for the city following the Cubs victory in baseball’s World Series, ending another barren run that lasted for over a century.
However, it also presented Schmidt and his team with something of a logistical problem, as travelling to the Windy City meant his time with the players was reduced and they had little time to prepare for the daunting game against international rugby’s dominant team.
Amazing, heartfelt words from Rob Kearney https://t.co/fqg0rcBApE
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 7, 2016
“(I’m) Blown away, blown away, because, you know, a number of things made it more complicated for us,” Schmidt said following the victory.
“As I said, over half the squad played PRO12 last week. We got together on Sunday, really, trained Monday, flew Monday evening. We did a bit of a walk through on Tuesday afternoon, had a day off on Wednesday, trained and trained well Thursday.”
Schmidt credits that positive training session on Thursday, combined with his team’s motivation and enthusiasm, as being crucial in building Ireland’s confidence for the game. It is as though the relatively short time they had to prepare for the game focused bodies and minds for the challenge of beating the All Blacks.
“I think everyone got a bit of confidence from us training well on Thursday,” Schmidt said.
“Everyone had obviously really committed to knowing their role and being really I suppose motivated to be not just accurate but enthusiastic as well. So, that gave us a bit of confidence.”
It takes a New Zealander to beat a New Zealander, according to beaten New Zealanders. https://t.co/fUPUSX2aUJ
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 7, 2016
The Ireland coach also revealed that some Cubs fans even cheered on the team bus as they travelled to training, mistaking the Irish rugby team for the city’s baseball team.
“Our captain’s run got brought forward from 11 to 9am yesterday so that was up pretty early. We went under the city, really, along by the railway tracks.
“Look, there’s some fantastic experiences, seeing all these millions of people above us while we’re sneaking underneath and when we were coming back I think some of them thought, because we had a police escort, that maybe there were some Cubs in the bus and were cheering us, or maybe there were just getting ahead for today. They were maybe more aware of how the game might turn out than we were.
“But in the end, just looking up in the crowd, how many green jerseys, how much enthusiasm was there and I think as Rory (Best) said the enthusiasm was reciprocated by the players on the pitch. They really dug in and rolled their sleeves up.”
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