Life used to be simpler. I’m still on the good side of 40 but remember a time when Ireland selection was relayed via a letter through the front door.
Information was slower, and at a more digestible pace. These days rugby squads need to exist in a cocoon to avoid the constant din.
In December I wrote that players are forced to be process driven: "Week by week, day by day, hour by hour. Next game mentality. Get yourself up for the All Blacks, recover; get yourself up for Bath at The Rec, recover; Bath at home, recover; Interpros over Christmas, recover; Champions Cup in January, recover so you can be ready for England in the Six Nations opener."
We are now in the belly of the beast.
Easy opener for 2019: How does any country win the World Cup?
New Zealand remembers. South Africa and Australia have it in their DNA (buried deep for Cheika’s Wallabies, but it’s there) while England seem to have forgotten the step-by-step process that led to Matt Dawson feeding Jonny Wilkinson for his drop goal in Sydney’s Olympic stadium way back in 2003.
Ireland and Wales are explorers, seeking to go where no Celtic nation has ever been before. The World Cup being the final frontier.
The past provides lessons and warnings but you still have to live in the now.
Frustrated about your minutes at provincial level? Get up earlier to stretch for an hour like Brad Thorn used to do.
The All Blacks stumbling success on home soil in 2011 provides the greatest example of what can go wrong will go wrong. The Ireland coach still talks about losing six crucial players – Paul O’Connell, Peter O’Mahony, Johnny Sexton, Seán O’Brien, Jared Payne and Tommy Bowe before the quarter-final against Argentina was done – but Richie McCaw had to literally crawl over Aaron Cruden in a World Cup final before watching Stephen Donald (more fisherman than All Black) enter the fray. Dan Carter and Colin Slade had already been stripped from their ranks and somehow they found a way with the fourth choice outhalf.
That would be like Schmidt needing to turn to (fill in the blank with Tyler Bleyendaal, Ciarán Frawley JJ Hanrahan or John Cooney!)if Johnny, Joey Carbery and Ross Byrne were forced off the scene by late hitting Springboks.
Imagine. Actually, don’t do that to yourself.
Anyway, the William Webb Ellis trophy will not be lifted in January, and that’s the secret: set attainable goals.
Frustrated about your minutes at provincial level? Get up earlier to stretch for an hour like Brad Thorn used to do. Feeling like a rival has the jump on you in Carton House? Work on your left to right-hand pass until the cows come home.
Make your goals simple and visible so when you arrive in Japan there is a body of work, from now until then, that fills you with belief that no matter what happens on the mountain side – no more climbing metaphors, promise – you’ll be equipped to keep scaling.
But forget about it. We are far enough away for players to block out RWC noises, and Yokohama dreams.
That becomes a real problem when Ireland finish up in Cardiff on March 16th.
The provincial coaches not in-situ when the Lions squad was announced in 2017 will need telling. Some players unconsciously protect themselves after making the 31 man cut. Leinster’s seamless switch from Grand Slam celebrations to Champions Cup glory last year may not be so smooth in 2019.
Come April your priority is to reach summer in good health in order to return for preseason in perfect nick, and cautiously slip through the warm-up games just to make the plane to Tokyo. That’s’s just human nature.
The player always has a choice – park my personal ambitions for the greater good or seek to stand out in every game?
For now, the provincial coaches can focus the minds with Toulouse, Gloucester, Racing 92 and Sale.
Nobody is thinking about England at the Aviva stadium on February 2nd, never mind Japan.
International selection looks after itself. Injury will deny or provide opportunity for those shining brightest beneath the surface. The player only needs to stay the course. Maintain confidence levels so you reach the land of the rising sun with an unbeatable attitude.
The player always has a choice – park my personal ambitions for the greater good or seek to stand out in every game?
By removing that choice, having not been selected for the 2003 World Cup squad, I started to enjoy my rugby, rather than going into games determined to leave a mark regardless of what was happening. As a result my career began a steady upward trajectory.
Until then I spiked and plummeted from excellence to ineptitude (usually in the opening 20 minutes).
Players and coaches see through this sort of behaviour and it gets weeded out of successful groups.
Nobody wants Iain Henderson to be injured but it presents Tadhg Beirne with an enormous opportunity. Same goes for the latest woes about Chris Farrell but Will Addison, Tom Farrell and Sam Arnold instantly see the added value of performing this weekend.
Arnold could shoot from the line in Kingsholm on Friday night to put Billy Twelvetrees on his backside. Or he could play the percentages, make his tackle, keep the line intact. Sounds so obvious and the Munster culture, never mind Arnold’s maturing game, probably means such an urge is resisted but temptation is always lurking.
Take John Cooney. What more can be asked of the scrumhalf who moved to Ulster, transforming his place-kicking into a serious weapon yet he probably won’t get a look in during the Six Nations. If Ulster continue to struggle this season Cooney will be tempted to play to the gallery. A 28-year-old at the peak of his powers would be forgiven for thinking: get on the plane to Tokyo at all costs. Now, of course, his best chance is to kick the lights out when Racing 92 come to the Kingspan stadium on Saturday afternoon. That’s how he can muscle past Kieran Marmion and Luke McGrath – make himself the versatile option Ireland will need against Samoa and Russia.
In 2003 I had one trial match to make the cut and come 2015 I needed to perform in a messy game against Scotland to get picked. For the other tournaments – 1999, 2007 and 2011 – I was selected with a little to spare so the mind set was different.
There will always be excuses but looking at what this squad has achieved I don't believe many of the Ireland teams I played on fulfilled their potential
I spent the ’07 and ’11 seasons on my attainable goals. Incremental, daily improvements like chop tackling, passing under pressure or whatever minor flaws cropped up.
You “check-in” with yourself every month; what have I achieved lately? It could be a personal best in the gym or a flawless defensive game. Whatever needs to happen to make you a marginally better player.
That was my head space, more often than not, from 2003 to 2015.
And that’s the collective mind set of Ireland in 2019.
That’s goes a long way to winning a World Cup.
My Ireland teams lacked the current levels of streamlined preparation. That’s the difference. There will always be excuses but looking at what this squad has achieved I don’t believe many of the Ireland teams I played on fulfilled their potential.
Let the coaches – Joe and his in-house successor Andy Farrell – worry about the big picture. Schmidt negotiates with the provinces over player minutes. Plenty is made about Johnny Sexton and Peter O’Mahony leaving big interprovincial games over Christmas on the hour mark but that’s standard practice now.
It’s what separates Ireland from England.
The work of Kitman Labs on player loads in the Irish system has provided huge benefits. If English, I’d despair at the amount of minutes Owen Farrell continues to play. Surely Saracens would be better served with him 95 per cent fit rather than the roughly 80 per cent mark they get by using him every week.
It’s the mental drain on modern players that really damages them.
There were plenty of times when shattered mentally or carrying a few knocks that the coach asked about my wellbeing. The answer was always unequivocal.
“Yep, 100 per cent.”
When the scientific evidence says otherwise, the player opinion is considered then politely ignored and you return rejuvenated. Because of relegation from the Premiership, English clubs can’t field teams like we saw from Leinster and Ulster at the RDS last Saturday.
If France adopt the science side of rugby, like Ireland have, and they do seem to be willing, we are all in trouble.
I think England will look back on this period in their rugby history and bemoan the amount of foreign players in their domestic competition and how they flogged their elite internationals.
Already, the French system under Bernard Laporte is beginning to accept change with a view to winning the World Cup they host in 2023. If France adopt the science side of rugby, like Ireland have, and they do seem to be willing, we are all in trouble.
The All Blacks have it down to a fine art. Losing two Test matches in 2018 and almost being caught in South Africa and at Twickenham will only help them. They have an expected level of performance, not from the New Zealand public, but of themselves.
It’s obvious if they trail off. When really good teams lose the next opponent tends to be devoured. That puts Leinster in a dangerous position on Saturday against Toulouse. Nobody will be thinking World Cup or Six Nations. It’s the need to respond to defeat in Limerick and at Stade Ernest-Wallon last October.
The process is refined. Problems will come, this is guaranteed, but the system looks strong enough to survive almost anything.
