Schmidt's incredulous claim: Ireland's confidence not dented by record 42-point hammering
Joe Schmidt has lamented "dishevelled" Ireland's record 57-15 loss to England, conceding his squad must lick their wounds and fast. Ireland leaked eight tries en route to their heaviest-ever loss to England, with Eddie Jones' men running rampant in west London.
Head coach Schmidt refused to brand Ireland's alarming loss a repeat of the bullying they admitted England dished out in the 32-20 defeat to Jones' men in the Six Nations in February. But the cowed Ireland boss conceded his squad must carry out some rapid soul searching to be ready to face Warren Gatland's snarling Wales in Cardiff next weekend.
Asked if Ireland's confidence had been dented by the magnitude and manner of their loss, Schmidt said: "I don't think so. But inevitably it hurts right now. That's a big score to offer up.
"There are some elements of the process that we know really weren't good enough; to miss 34 tackles, to be sluggish in getting ourselves organised as we were. I knew we'd be heavy-legged and I knew we wouldn't be perfect today because we had had a big workload.
"Cardiff will be a bit of a cauldron to go to, but that will be a big challenge for these players. It was a litany of disappointing aspects and uncharacteristic inaccuracy from us today, to be honest, that contributed to our own downfall, and we looked dishevelled.
"We didn't get our set-piece going, didn't really scavenge as well as we would have liked. We fell off 34 tackles, 21 in the first half. We were underdone, a bit heavy-legged. It doesn't have to be too much of a margin between two teams for one to be a bit sluggish and the other to be on the top of their game. I know we can get better than that, I know we have to.
"The players will take responsibility to do everything they can to turn it around next week and build from that. Because what really matters is in four weeks' time, for the World Cup opener against Scotland. You do get some disproportionate scores in World Cup warm-up matches. But we still have to accept we weren't nearly good enough today and we've got to be a lot better the next time out.”
Conor Murray suffered a head injury scare, but Schmidt confirmed the Munster scrum-half passed an assessment. Schmidt also hopes Cian Healy can shake off an ankle knock in time to contest World Cup selection. "Cian sprained his ankle, that's clear from the X-ray, but he walked from the pitch so we're hopeful that he'll be okay.”
- Press Association
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Skelton may be brought back for the Wallabies so that would be the only reason that may hinder Wilson. Easily the form, most skilful and game IQ of any Oz 8. Valentini’s best and favourite position is 6, but lineouts may be an issue with Skelton, Valentini and Wilson. Will be interesting what Schmidt goes for but for me Wilson should be picked on form. Schmidt rewards work rate, skill and consistency. All that glitters every so often won’t be in contention. Greely is one of those players that has a knack of making the right decision. A coach is going to love him because he knows week in week out he’s going to get the job done. The second try Greely wasn’t the guy who made the initial break it was Flook, Greely was at the bottom of the ruck when Flook was off along the sideline. Greely got up and made the effort to catch up with play but also read the play nicely and hit the pass from Campbell at pace and then held the pass beautifully to Ryan.
Go to commentsSharks deserved to be far further back by the last quarter. Their tackling was awful, their set pieces were disappointing, their defensive organization was poor (especially on the Kok side of the D line), they kept making unnecessary errors, and they never looked like cracking the Clermont defense during those first 60m. Masuku kept them in touch, with some help from the Clermont generosity on penalty opportunities. Agree with the writer of this article. It was belligerence, and ability to raise their pressure game just enough, that turned the last quarter into a Bok-style shutout. Clermont have a reputation of not playing the full 80m, and there was a bit of that for sure. But, quite often when the intensity of a team drops off in the last quarter credit is due to the opponent for tiring them out. At 60m, with the Kok try, you thought that just maybe the game was on. At 70m, with the Mapimpi contribution, one felt that Clermont were fading, while facing a team that would maintain the pressure game through the final whistle. Good win in the end, but the Sharks are still playing way below their potential. And with their resources, and a coach that has had enough time to figure things out, they are running out of excuses.
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