You will hear the word. You will read the word. You will see the word. It now belongs to Paul O'Connell. Given to him by Joe Schmidt, it was pulled out of the coach's Kiwi locker and pinned on the captain's chest.
Mana – “Spiritual power. Charisma.” With a clenched fist Schmidt summed up the day’s work from his captain in two syllables. In trench conflicts like versus the Springboks, O’Connell is Ireland’s line in the sand. He is Mana – “control, status”.
"Look, there's not a lot I can add to the Paul O'Connell (story)," said the Irish coach before his reference to New Zealand culture.
“He has an incredible amount of respect. A word that sums him up is that he’s just got ‘Mana’. A guy who does not know how to give up. When he’s done, he delivers again. Not many have the mental capacity that Paul O’Connell has. There are a lot of guys who physically get into good shape, but he’s one of the most mentally tough players I’ve been involved with. I’m not sure myself how he does it.”
Transformative effect
The Irish coach swept the inferred praises off his own shoulders and heaped them onto others. Schmidt also quietly marvelled at the growing capacity of
Johnny Sexton
to decisively influence games.
The outhalf’s traditional fussiness and control at its best has a transformative effect on the team. His kicking, his breaking and the territorial imperative of easing pressure and building attacking platforms against the second best side in the world drew more words of approval from Schmidt.
“I think Johnny was rehabbing a little bit and we tried to make it a bit of a softly, softly week, give him some time and space,” he said.
“He repaid us this evening. I certainly remember that kick to the right hand corner. You just don’t get that without the quality of his kicking game. Him putting us in the right places on the field was really impressive tonight.”
Schmidt now warns of inflated self-opinion and offers his theory of how the world of rugby coaching really works.
"Growth, it billows and expands and you think it's going great and then somebody takes a sharp point and puts a hole in you," he says. "We try to maintain a standard next week against Georgia and the week after against Australia.
“I know I’ve said it a number of times before, things just don’t unfortunately happen in a linear fashion, even if you’re working particularly hard to make that happen.
“You know, we talked last year against New Zealand about the system errors we made at the end of the game. That’s when you’ve still got to be crystal clear in your thinking and maintain your trust in the other players. You’ve got to make sure you do your job and trust the others.
“We will try and maintain a standard against Georgia and then against Australia.”
The three matches are also a journey as well as end points. The team will change for Georgia but for instructive purposes Schmidt might look at the tape of Ireland's difficult match against them in Bordeaux in the 2007 World Cup.
“There are some guys who played tonight who won’t play next week because I don’t think they’re physically capable of getting bashed like they did and getting up again eight days later and then try to repeat that again six days later,” explains the coach.
Few changes
“So with the tight turnaround from Georgia to Australia there’ll be a few changes but there’ll be some continuity as well.”
O’Connell said the win was “massive.” But his thoughts are drawn to the set-pieces, which were grit in the ointment. “We speak all the time about being able to improve week on week, month on month, campaign on campaign. I think . . when we look back on that there will be a lot of things to improve on; the scrum, lineout . . .”
Mana – bringing it home sometimes ain’t enough.
