JOE SCHMIDT BELIEVES developing squad depth will be a key factor in determining his level of success as Ireland boss.
The Irish team have often been criticised for being inconsistent in the past, and this flaw has been especially evident of late, with the side playing poorly against Australia before delivering a much-improved display against New Zealand.
And speaking at the launch of this year’s Ulster Bank League Awards, Schmidt said he hoped Ireland could perform to a high level irrespective of frequent personnel changes.
“We’ll be looking at the Wolfhounds, to get an opportunity to look at the group, because one of the things I would say about the All Blacks was that their strength in depth was evident in the Aviva and it was evident throughout the season — they used 40 odd players to make a bit of history for themselves with 14 unbeaten games. Could we do that with 40 players? Not at the moment. But we’ve got to be able to do it with 30.
“It was a bit of a drum I was beating earlier in the Autumn Series — talking about trying to grow the group. I think the series was useful for that — we did use 29 players.”
However, Schmidt concedes that he is invariably unwilling to take too many risks when picking the team as almost every game is so vital.
“It’s difficult, even during the Guinness Series, every test match is a final. You don’t have the luxury of experimenting. But at the same time, I thought Luke Marshall did a lot of good things [in the series]. On the back of that, he didn’t get the All-Blacks game. But I don’t think I’ve seen Gordon D’Arcy play better than against the All Blacks.“What you want is that competition for places. A genuine competition where people are driven along by guys within the squad — not just the opponent they’re going to be facing. If we can develop that within the national squad, I think it’s a really positive place to be in.”
Schmidt admits he still hasn’t quite gotten over the New Zealand game — a problem not helped by the significant length of time before Ireland’s next match.
“It’s different from being in the provincial environment where you can quickly bury things because you’ve got a game the next week,” he explains.
“It has been something that’s regurgitated itself a number of times and the taste hasn’t gotten any better. I had a good look at the game and there were a number of positives. You’ve got to trap those and bring them to the next camp.”
Until then, Schmidt feels the Irish players have a number of aspects of their game to improve upon.
“We also have to work on some of the things that we didn’t do well enough. I thought the second try was the most disappointing for me. We needed to shore up the defence in closer to the ruck and we needed to be more combative there.“Obviously, the last one sticks in your mind because that was the bit of history that got away from us.
“But at the same time, I did think that players were still making a massive effort, but we made a number of system errors whereby players didn’t get themselves in the right positions in the right time to make sure our line was as solid as it needed to be.
“The pain is something that the players have had a better opportunity to get past. They’ve got big games coming up this weekend. They can move on straight away and by the time they come into camp, they’ll be in the back of those Heineken Cup games. We’ll get one session on the field at camp and then we’ll be pushing on from there.”
