On the eve of Ireland’s Six Nations visit of Wales, and Joe Schmidt’s seventh encounter against Warren Gatland’s side, it’s interesting to look back at the New Zealander’s record as Ireland head coach thus far.
Schmidt’s record reads: played 52, won 37, lost 14 and drawn once.
Schmidt has an interesting win-loss record as Ireland coach against the Tier One Nations in particular, that is, the Six Nations and Rugby Championship sides.
Against Argentina, France, Australia, South Africa, Scotland and Italy; Schmidt has 23 wins from 29 games; clocking in an impressive 79% win rate.
Against England he has won just twice from five games. Against New Zealand he is just one from three, and against Wales, he is two from six.
If you told an Irish Rugby fan that an Ireland head coach had the same win percentage against New Zealand as he did against Wales, you’d probably spend the next five minutes trying to come up with a variety of different ways that you could nail this coach down to a lifetime contract.
Schmidt is contracted with Ireland not until the end of his days, bur rather until the end of the 2019 Rugby World Cup campaign, at which point, he could enter the New Zealand sweepstakes to replace Steve Hansen, who is set to step down as All Blacks coach after the tournament.
Also in consideration to succeed Hansen will be Schmidt’s opposing coach this weekend – Warren Gatland.
Gatland has been quite scathing in his previous assessments of Ireland’s brand of rugby under Schmidt, and up until the opening round win over Scotland, many of the same critcisims could be said of his own side.
“I don’t think Ireland play a lot of rugby, but they’ve been incredibly successful,” said Gatland in 2015. “I thought they were really narrow at times and a lot of the players are quite narrow.
“When they play that game effectively, when they use their one-off runners effectively and get some success from cross-kicks, that’s what they’re good at doing.
“We didn’t feel like we were troubled at all in the wide channels. They got some turnover stuff and some kick returns and stuff, which put us under pressure, but when they played with ball in hand, we didn’t feel like we were under a huge amount of pressure.”
Questions of Ireland’s style seemingly irked Schmidt this week, who has become spikier this year in comparison to seasons goneby, but Gatland’s criticisms aren’t exactly wide of the mark.
Ireland have played narrow in the past, with Daniel Hourcade’s Argentina brutally exposing their lack of width in the 2015 Rugby World Cup quarter-final.
Johnny Sexton, and increasingly Conor Murray, will both use the cross kick as an effective attacking weapon should an opportunity present itself, while, with five tries in their last five Six Nations games, Italy withstanding, they can be viewed, at least in the Six Nations, as a side that largely works the scoreboard.
Of course, Wales have not exactly been an attacking juggernaut either over the last year after scoring just eight tries in last year’s championship.
Their 34-7 win against Scotland on the opening day, and the manner in which they scored their tries, gives the indication that Ireland will be facing a much different Welsh outfit compared to previous years.
But whether it’s ‘crash and bash’ or an attacking based game from Wales as seen against Scotland, Ireland have struggled with the Welsh under Schmidt.
The last two visits to Cardiff have brutally exposed Ireland’s lack of creativity in attack, while the 16-16 draw at Lansdowne Road in 2016 shows that Wales are by no means intimidated by the prospect of coming to Dublin.
Ireland have not beaten Wales in the Six Nations since their resounding 26-3 win in the 2014 Six Nations, but Ireland are a much different team in 2018 to what they were back then, if not for the least by way of personnel, in style too.
“I think if anyone tried to analyse what we do, there is a lot of variety in what we do, and I think that the times that we’ve not quite managed to get the result against Wales, we’ve probably had as much as the game as they have, and we haven’t quite been able to put the game away,” said Schmidt.
“Do we play slightly differently from two years ago? I think anyone who does analysis will say ‘yes we do’, there are some changes in what we do, and I’m obviously not going to explain them, that’s your challenge, I guess.”
While Ireland failed to cross the try line in their opening Six Nations game against France in Paris, their were signs of attacking improvement, particularly through their forwards.
Devin Toner and Tadhg Furlong have both emerged as playmakers in the pack, and while Furlong had a relatively high ball handling base to begin with, Schmidt must be given credit here as the players have been entrusted to execute within his structure.
The loss of Furlong will also represent a significant loss to Ireland’s attack, both in terms of his ball carrying and his distribution, while the inclusion of Chris Farrell in place of the injured Robbie Henshaw is arguably Ireland’s biggest question mark heading into Saturday’s match.
But in one sense, this could be one of Schmidt’s biggest tests against the only Tier One nation that he’s struggled against that aren’t the two-time defending world champions.
If Ireland win they stay on course for a Grand Slam, if they lose, the Grand Slam is off for anothet year and they could head to England next month with the very real prospect of yielding another three, or even two, win campaign.
Schmidt says Ireland’s style has changed, which is encouraging given that the old way produced just two wins from six against this weekend’s opposition, but as ever, the Six Nations is a results based business.
Schmidt is 15 from 22 in the Six Nations with two championships next to his name in what is now his fifth campaign in charge.
That’s impressive.
However, a win over Italy is like a weekend away where you can temporarily escape reality and recharge the batteries.
A Welsh team that you have not beaten since 2014 is like the hotel manager knocking loudly on your door, demanding an explanation for the mess that you’ve made over consecutive nights.
Schmidt will answer the door, he has to, but on Saturday, for all the talk of style, it will be actions that will inevitably speak louder than his words.
