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Joe Schmidt hits back at Agustin Pichot in row over Devin Toner's RWC omission
By Online Editors
Joe Schmidt has offered a withering dismissal of Agustin Pichot's criticism of Ireland selecting Jean Kleyn ahead of Devin Toner. World Rugby vice chairman Pichot claimed Toner should be asking the game's governing body - and his own organisation - "for answers" after his omission from Ireland's 31-man World Cup squad on Monday.
South Africa-born Kleyn only qualified for Ireland on residency two days before his Test debut, in the 29-10 victory over Italy in Dublin on August 10. Pichot hit out at Ireland selecting a naturalised player over a homegrown talent, but Schmidt has now snapped back to swipe that critique aside.
Referencing Pichot questioning Wales' recent rise to world No1, Schmidt said: "Gus Pichot had a big opinion about who should be world number one as well. He has a number of big opinions, but they are not ones that are relevant for us. “Talking to Warren (Gatland) last week, they weren't relevant to him either. What is relevant is that under the laws of the game, as they were, we are entitled to pick guys who have qualified.
"Considering he is involved in World Rugby, he could have a look at what the rules were and not have so many things to say because for us it is tough enough to do our job and tough enough for me to have a conversation as I did with Devin.
"With Ireland, the qualification involvement is I don't know probably six or seven per cent. The rest are homegrown guys who are not only homegrown but who are domiciled here apart from two years when Johnny (Sexton) was used from Paris. If there was any question about the number of Irish people involved then I would be surprised when you match up those numbers."
The former New Zealand schoolteacher has become an Irish citizen in his time coaching first Leinster and now Ireland. The 53-year-old will return home after the World Cup, stepping down after six years at the Irish helm. Schmidt was moved to defend his naturalised Ireland players in the wake of criticism of Kleyn however, insisting anyone winning Test caps for his side has proved their commitment to both cause and country.
"I'm not sure I'm the most qualified to comment as I am a blow-in myself and I'll be blowing out soon enough so Gus Pichot has changed the rules and those rules will apply beyond this World Cup and they will apply as long as people feel that is the right residency rule," said Schmidt.
"I would question how much CJ Stander has committed to his local environment, what Bundee Aki has done for his local environment, that they are domiciled here in Ireland and have been for a number of years. They have contributed to their community and I'm not sure how long you have to contribute to a community and work hard in that community before you can be accepted by those people.
"I was put under a lot of pressure when Bundee played his first game. A lot of people wrote things but by the end of that first season he had played for Ireland he was named as supporters' player of the year. Now, I think that the majority - and maybe it is a silent majority - will fully get behind this squad and be fully supportive in the hope that we can do as well as we can in Japan."
- Press Association
WATCH: Wales skipper Alun Wyn Jones speaks to the media as their squad continue their preparations for the World Cup with a match agians Ireland in Dublin
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Latest Comments
Yeah I actually think it was Havili that took it off him. Not bad himself, but on the advice of Razor, who didn't even pursue it and use Havili on a split bench as 10 cover?
One huge cluster#$@% but I think you could be right, I liked O'Connor when he won at the Reds and I've just got a funny feeling he's going to dominate Super Rugby, kinda like how Cooper came back to the Wallabies as an experienced head and spat out South Africa. I think James could do the same with the Blues and other Aus sides. I'd really love Rivez to get a lot of minutes though.
Go to commentsI rated Lowe well enough to be an AB. Remember we were picking the likes of George Bridge above such players so theres no disputing a lot of bad decisions have been made by those last two coaches. Does a team like the ABs need a finicky winger who you have to adapt and change a lot of your style with to get benefit from? No, not really. But he still would have been a basic improvement on players like even Savea at the tail of his career, Bridge, and could even have converted into the answer of replacing Beauden at the back. Instead we persisted with NMS, Naholo, Havili, Reece, all players we would have cared even less about losing and all because Rieko had Lowe's number 11 jersey nailed down.
He was of course only 23 when he decided to leave, it was back in the beggining of the period they had started retaining players (from 2018 onwards I think, they came out saying theyre going to be more aggressive at some point). So he might, all of them, only just missed out.
The main point that Ed made is that situations like Lowe's, Aki's, JGP's, aren't going to happen in future. That's a bit of a "NZ" only problem, because those players need to reach such a high standard to be chosen by the All Blacks, were as a country like Ireland wants them a lot earlier like that. This is basically the 'ready in 3 years' concept Ireland relied on, versus the '5 years and they've left' concept' were that player is now ready to be chosen by the All Blacks (given a contract to play Super, ala SBW, and hopefully Manu).
The 'mercenary' thing that will take longer to expire, and which I was referring to, is the grandparents rule. The new kids coming through now aren't going to have as many gp born overseas, so the amount of players that can leave with a prospect of International rugby offer are going to drop dramatically at some point. All these kiwi fellas playing for a PI, is going to stop sadly.
The new era problem that will replace those old concerns is now French and Japanese clubs (doing the same as NRL teams have done for decades by) picking kids out of school. The problem here is not so much a national identity one, than it is a farm system where 9 in 10 players are left with nothing. A stunted education and no support in a foreign country (well they'll get kicked out of those countries were they don't in Australia).
It's the same sort of situation were NZ would be the big guy, but there weren't many downsides with it. The only one I can think was brought up but a poster on this site, I can't recall who it was, but he seemed to know a lot of kids coming from the Islands weren't really given the capability to fly back home during school xms holidays etc. That is probably something that should be fixed by the union. Otherwise getting someone like Fakatava over here for his last year of school definitely results in NZ being able to pick the cherries off the top but it also allows that player to develop and be able to represent Tonga and under age and possibly even later in his career. Where as a kid being taken from NZ is arguably going to be worse off in every respect other than perhaps money. Not going to develop as a person, not going to develop as a player as much, so I have a lotof sympathy for NZs case that I don't include them in that group but I certainly see where you're coming from and it encourages other countries to think they can do the same while not realising they're making a much worse experience/situation.
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