Joe Schmidt's coaching regrets: 'In six and a half years, I've not taken one full day off.'
Outgoing Ireland coach Joe Schmidt has expressed regret with the way he prepared his players for the World Cup, saying the team's desperation to prove their credibility in Japan may have been their downfall.
Rated major contenders a year out from the tournament, Ireland crashed out of the quarter-finals with a 46-14 thrashing by the All Blacks, continuing their record of never winning a knockout game at the global showpiece.
"If I had one regret it's the fact we talked about (the World Cup) a year ago," the New Zealander told reporters after arriving back in Dublin.
"We built up to it and we probably went away from our week-to-week focus or our immediate tournament focus.
"Maybe we built it into something that became a bit of a self-consuming monster because we didn't play as well as we could.
"I have to take responsibility for that.
"If I had my time over I might do it a little bit differently. Unfortunately, my time is done."
But a disappointing World Cup campaign has not greatly diminished the market appeal of a coach who took Ireland to three Six Nations titles and the Grand Slam in 2018 in his six years in charge.
Schmidt, who will be succeeded by assistant coach Andy Farrell, said he had been "blown away" by offers of coaching positions but would not entertain any until the middle of next year.
"I know I'm not going to do (coaching) in the near future," said the 54-year-old.
"I made a commitment that I'm going to absolutely stick to, through to at least June or July of next year.
"It hasn't been a job, it has been a way of life. It has been seven days a week and I think I can honestly say, in six and a half years, I've not taken one full day off."
Schmidt's comments may disappoint some Australian rugby fans as the Wallabies look for a successor for Michael Cheika, who resigned a day after their own quarter-final exit from Japan.
Schmidt said he would enjoy being a spectator for a change and expected Farrell and the Irish team to continue to do a "super job".
"I'm really looking forward to the Six Nations," he added.
"Instead of looking through the glass, I might just have one in my hand and I'm looking forward to that."
- AAP
Check out what Joe Schmidt had to say his side's quarterfinal defeat to the All Blacks:
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Finau is definitely operating on razor thin margins. He hasn’t done anything wrong… yet. But a player going into contact 6 inches lower than he is expecting, without him even knowing, will end in disaster. You can imagine a situation where the pass dies on Edmed and he has to bend down a little lower to catch it at the last second. Finau’s hit would have been catastrophic. The margins are just too fine. He needs to study how PSDT, at 6’7”, manages to drop his tackle height and exert just as much force with close zero danger of taking someone’s head off. Given how poorly NZ has adapted to lower their tackle height, and that this issue which has plagued the ABs for years and played a big part in them not winning the World Cup, I thought NZR and all SR coaches would be prioritising sorting this issue out. If I was Razor I would be on the phone to Clayton MacMillan and Samipeni Finau saying exactly that. Finau is a monster and shaping up to be the closest thing to Kaino since Kaino, but I wouldn’t risk selecting him for the ABs at the moment.
Go to commentsThe surprising stat I saw in the Blues game when showing Sotutu equaling the Blues forwards record was that Akira has not scored a try since 2019. Now my memory is pretty bad when it comes to those sorts of the things, I can remember his AB try though, but anyway I can’t see I can remember his last blues touchdown or any in recent years. Surely that still has to be a bogus stat. Maybe excludes SRA games?
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