skip to main content

Schmidt has fallen before and the landings have been soft

Joe Schmidt: 'The massive challenge for us now is to get better, fast'
Joe Schmidt: 'The massive challenge for us now is to get better, fast'

"Mais l'important n'est pas la chute, c'est l'atterrissage".

It wouldn't take fluent French speaker Joe Schmidt long to translate Hubert's memorable opening and closing lines from 'La Haine'. 

"It’s not the fall that's important, it’s the landing."

With a Grand Slam, a series win in Australia, a victory over New Zealand propping them up, Schmidt's side fell from a height on Saturday. 

There have been a few set-backs in the Ireland head coach's career but the 32-20 loss must feel like one of the hardest to take, possibly, in the New Zealander’s mind, as bad as the defeat to Argentina in 2015.

We need your consent to load this SoundCloud contentWe use SoundCloud to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

Then, Ireland were infamously crippled by injury and suspension for a World Cup quarter-final clash.

On Saturday they were close to full strength with the game coming less than four months after a sublime performance - arguably Ireland's greatest 80 minutes - against the All Blacks. 

Schmidt conceded Ireland were "bullied" and that the 32-20 loss was a "reality check".

"The massive challenge for us now is to get better, fast," he added. 

But the Kiwi coach has been here before, and come through. 

Before taking up the Leinster job in 2010, Schmidt, as a backs coach under Vern Cotter at Clermont, had to deal with three successive Top 14 final defeats. It was heart-breaking for a club who had never won the Bouclier de Brennus.

Schmidt in his Clermont days

It's rare to get four shots at a target but Clermont were back again the following year.

"It is a great feeling to have got this monkey of failure off our backs at last," Schmidt said after a 19-6 win over Perpignan.

"Some people might say you have to go through such pain to understand completely the sweet feeling of victory."

Three losses in a row was the fall, the 2010 final was the landing. 

Upon his arrival in Leinster that summer, things were not plain sailing either. 

Schmidt lost three of his opening four games, including a defeat to Treviso. It didn't look good for the former Bay of Plenty assistant as he took the top job for the first time. 

Current Leinster scrum coach John Fogarty recalled how the boss was quick to sense a bad attitude: "The team was feeling pretty good about itself, we had won [the Heineken Cup in 2009] and got to a semi-final the following year," he said. 

"We had underperformed at the end of the previous season, despite getting to the Pro12 final, but we were missing Johnny Sexton so there were a number of excuses we could have used and we did use those excuses.

In Leinster colours

"Joe smashed through all that nonsense. He was very direct in how he spoke and everyone understood really, really quickly what he was about and that you are not going to get away with that attitude around him."

The landing: Leinster won their second Heineken Cup that May, and followed it up 12 months later with another European title. 

Despite winning three Six Nations in five attempts, Ireland have been notoriously slow starters in the competition under Schmidt. Even last year's opening win came in the most unlikely fashion via a late Sexton drop goal. 

The most recent comparable result to Saturday's defeat was the 2017 opener against next weekend's opponent's Scotland. 

Again, it was a slow start that cost Schmidt’s side, who trailed 21-8 at the break before losing 27-22. 

Scotland beat Ireland last time out in Edinburgh

"We arrived at the stadium 10 or 15 minutes late and we were late for most things in the first half," Schmidt told RTE Sport after the game.

"It’s particularly tough to take. We were well off our game and I think the Scottish attack took advantage of that."

As eyes turn to Thursday’s team announcement it is worth noting that injuries aside, Schmidt kept faith with the team that misfired in Murrayfield.

Rory Best fell ill before the Italy game and Iain Henderson was injured. Apart from that, Cian Healy replaced Jack McGrath in the front row but the two were regularly switching starting and bench spots around the time.

Italy, of course, didn't pose the same threat that a buoyant Scotland will and whether or not Schmidt sticks with Robbie Henshaw at full-back will be the main talking point. Four of Scotland's five tries were scored by back-three players. 

A home win over France kept Ireland in the hunt two years ago but the trip to Wales a fortnight after ended all title hopes with the prize of ending England’s Grand Slam run some consolation.

Ireland went out of the last world cup to Argentina

However, the defeat that still "haunts" Schmidt was the 43-20 reverse to Argentina at the 2015 World Cup.

While it is difficult to gauge his immediate reaction to that loss, given that the side was severely hampered by injury and suspension, and the next game came almost four months later, the team didn’t bounce back in the following year’s Six Nations.

A draw with Wales in Dublin got the campaign off to an underwhelming start.

"We just exist in a bubble. I got a little bit of an impression of that [negatively around Ireland] in the press conference on Friday. I did sense as well that we were a little vulnerable," he said about the 16-16 stalemate.

Worryingly, the 53-year-old said something similar on Saturday.

"We were very quiet before the game," he said.

"I didn’t sense the same kind of energy levels that I would have noticed in November when the All Blacks came." As an aside, it's an appalling situation if Ireland can’t get up for a match against England. 

Back in 2016, a narrow defeat followed in France before England added to the misery.

Ireland beat the All Blacks for the first time in Chicago

The whole campaign can be taken as a set-back but the subsequent reaction included a first-ever win over New Zealand later that year.

But the deflating defeat in Edinburgh served as yet another missed opportunity to build on the autumn momentum, which also included a win over Australia.

Ireland have never reached the semi-finals of the World Cup and if Schmidt delivers that this campaign, no matter what happens, will be forgotten. 

If that is his mission then the rest of the Six Nations campaign might still be used to build a squad with depth for Japan. 

Speaking on RTÉ's Against the Head on Monday, former Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan, said that even a win over Gregor Townsend's side at Murrayfield won't answer all the questions that emanated from the England loss. 

"The bottom line is how you react," said another former manager, Donal Lenihan, on the same programme. 

It’s not the fall that's important, it’s the landing, as Schmidt is well aware. 

We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences

Follow Scotland v Ireland (2.15pm) via our live blog on RTÉ.ie/sport and the News Now app, or listen to live national radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1's Saturday Sport.

Read Next