Major doubt: Ireland are likely to be without Jonathan Sexton for Sunday's clash against New Zealand Photo: PA
After seeing his side comprehensively beaten by Australia, Ireland coach Joe Schmidt must lift his players to face New Zealand on Sunday
He put a brave face on it, but this defeat will have cut deep for Ireland
coach Joe Schmidt, who now has to pick up the pieces for next Sunday and a
rather ominous looking meeting with the All Blacks.
Even in the immediate aftermath of the wreckage of a performance in the 32-15 defeat by Australia, the focus was turning towards how Ireland might somehow manage to derail the New Zealand juggernaut for the first time ever as the Kiwis close in on the record of going through a calendar year unbeaten.
“We know how good they are,” Schmidt said of his countrymen and there was certainly no-one prepared to disagree.
“All we can do is prepare as best we can and that will start by trying to recover [from Australia] and then try to get together and look at things and try to forge ahead from there,” the Irish coach added as he now stared down the barrel of managing only one win – against a pretty dire Samoa – from his first three games in charge.
At least the green shirts have one thing going for them, namely that there is a complete absence of expectation that they can prevent Richie McCaw et al from achieving another landmark goal. Liberated from pressure, they might just put it up to an undoubtedly weary Kiwi side.
It is a long shot, though, especially if, as expected, Jonathan Sexton’s hamstring injury keeps him out of the reckoning for next Sunday.
“We watched part of the All Blacks game before we came down [to the ground],” Mike Ross said of the Saturday’s Twickenham encounter. “They were clinical and one thing you can’t do is give them a lead and then have to chase it. We’ll have to improve a lot between now and next week if we want to give them a match.”
Against Australia, Ireland conceded four tries – Michael Hooper bagging two while Nick Cummins and Quade Cooper also crossed – and scored none while they also coughed up countless turnovers to a highly aggressive Wallaby effort at the breakdown and in the collision zone. Their tactical kicking was also wayward while defensively Ireland were cruelly exposed.
Even the Irish scrum found itself ominously creaking at key moments while Schmidt may now also have to contemplate replicating Warren Gatland’s big call of the summer by dropping Brian O’Driscoll for what would be his last tilt at New Zealand.
The Wallabies – with Cooper scoring 17 of their total while pulling the strings – even survived Hooper’s 32nd-minute sending to the sin-bin and the red card shown late on to centre Tevita Kuridrani for a tip tackle on Peter O’Mahony though the game was already up at that stage.
