JUST DAYS AFTER guiding Ireland to a second Six Nations title in two attempts, Joe Schmidt jetted off to the Southern Hemisphere with his family.
A well-earned break from the intensity of international rugby, but more importantly an opportunity to get some help for his young son, Luke.
Schmidt enjoyed a second Six Nations win with Ireland this year. Source: Billy Stickland/INPHO
Schmidt is back in Ireland now and put his foot down in emphatic fashion last week when addressing Matt O’Connor and Leinster’s complaints about the IRFU’s player management system.
This was the boss of Irish rugby stamping his authority all over the vocal dissent.
In terms of on-the-pitch matters, Schmidt is going over his World Cup plans with a fine tooth comb. The Kiwi is also plotting exactly how he will approach next month’s clash with the Barbarians.
Ireland face the invitational side, coached by Robbie Deans on this occasion, in Thomond Park in a non-capped match on 28 May. That’s just two days before the Guinness Pro12 final in Belfast, so it may be that Schmidt is denied the services of Ulster and/or Munster players.
Connacht will hope to have finished the Pro12 season in sixth position, but it might well be that Pat Lam’s men are involved in a Champions Cup qualification play-off game in that final week of May.
Indeed, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that Leinster could finish in seventh position and instead contest the play-offs. Either way, it seems certain that Schmidt will be without at least one of the province’s Ireland-qualified contingents.
“One of the really pragmatic things was to get everyone to finish at the same time and for everyone to get the same four weeks off so that people will have had some rugby right up to that point,” says Schmidt of the timing of Ireland’s clash with the Barbarians.