The boss man has seen many things in this crazy game but how about an 82nd minute drop goal from 46 metres out to clinch victory from the jaws of defeat in Paris?!
Schmidt’s relationship with Johnny Sexton goes back eight years now. Leinster and Ireland – their fates are intertwined.
From the Heineken Cup highs to the lows of Twickenham, Murrayfield and [with Leinster] Stade Marcel Michelin. Win or lose, they are in it together.
For 10 horrible minutes at the Stade de France, they were in for a horrible loss together. France should have been toast but Sexton had missed a crucial penalty, when his team were 12-6 ahead, and Ireland had wasted each trip into the opposition 22 [getting turned over three times].
Teddy Thomas then blitzed half the Irish backline and Ireland, for the first time in the game, trailed. France could have went 16-12 ahead but Anthony Belleau missed a 77th minute penalty kick of his own and Ireland had one life left.
Iain Henderson claimed a vital restart from the Ireland 22 and we were off. The chaos ended 41 phases later with Sexton slotting an absolute peach of a drop goal.
Following Ireland’s 15-13 victory in Paris, Schmidt commented:
“It’s pretty hard to explain how you feel when you think that the game has got away and you’ve let it slip and suddenly you’ve grabbed it because of, I felt, an incredible team effort to work their way up the pitch, about 40 or 45 metres and then to add on, at the end of it, a 40-metre drop goal.
“It was fairly inspirational, even the fact that so many people had to be involved. We had to drop kick the ball to start with and Iain Henderson got it back. We played a number of phases, a cross-kick for Keith Earls, who lept three or four feet into the air to claim it.
“We felt we got very close to earning some reward when it was very, very slow ball. It was difficult to clear our ball a number of times but we didn’t appear to be going to get much of a chance there.
“Then, when he struck the drop goal, I was just willing it to have enough distance to get over because when he struck it it looked like it might and when it did, I think the coaching staff all stood up as one and probably cheered with the other Irish supporters who were in the stadium.”
Having landed just 3 drop goals in his previous 74 Tests, we asked Schmidt what was going through his mind when his hobbling outhalf dropped into the pocket. He revealed:
“He had one against the Scarlets to draw a match around nine years ago and that was a cracker as well. He hit one last year against England which was a cracking drop goal as well, or it might have been France actually, so he has got a few but not many.
“I don’t think he was really thinking about the history or the success of his drop goal attempts were, I think he just stepped up and seized the moment and he did it with absolute aplomb.
“That’s a credit to Johnny because he had a bit of cramp at the time and was fatigued himself, but his clarity of thought and ability to win those big moments is second to none.”
Second to none.
