The pain of defeat can be a great motivator and Ireland coach Joe Schmidt admits exactly that is spurring his team on as they prepare to face Scotland in round two of the Guinness Six Nations this weekend.
Ireland suffered just their second defeat since March 2017 last weekend as a brilliant England powered to a memorable 32-20 victory in Dublin to derail the Grand Slam defence at the first hurdle.
Schmidt’s team aren’t used to losing – a near-flawless 2018 saw them defeated just once, away to Australia, and that was immediately avenged.
CHANGING FACES
For round two in Edinburgh, the coach has made five changes to his starting XV – although four of those are injury-enforced with Robbie Henshaw, Garry Ringrose, CJ Stander and Devin Toner all missing out.
In come Rob Kearney, Chris Farrell, Jack Conan and Quinn Roux – as well as Sean O’Brien for Josh van der Flier, who drops to the bench – and Schmidt is predicting a reaction from his troops.
“Yeah, there has been a bitter edge,” said Schmidt. “I do think we had a few tired bodies coming in (to the Championship), a few guys who hadn’t played a lot and it is hard to hit the ground running.
“But I do think that there’s no way that we want to volunteer any excuses because there are none.
“We hadn’t lost in a Guinness Six Nations game at home in six years and that hurt – there weren’t too many guys who slept well after that.”
FARRELL’S CHANCE
When Ringrose was ruled out with a hamstring injury, the thought was Henshaw would switch to No.13 with Kearney at full-back.
However, Henshaw then suffered a dead leg this week to also be ruled out, giving Munster’s powerhouse centre Farrell an opportunity for his first international appearance since last year’s Championship – when he sustained a cruciate ligament injury.
And Schmidt is excited about seeing the 6ft 3in, 110kg battering ram form a powerful midfield partnership with Bundee Aki.
“Robbie has a dead leg unfortunately, it was just a bit of aggravation after getting a knock – a knock on top of a knock,” he said.
“The problem is that maybe he could have played but another bump would debilitate you and force an early change. He took part in training on Tuesday and didn’t train on Thursday.
“But it’s an exciting opportunity to play Chris Farrell against Scotland. He only got one Championship match last year and he’s coming back into form.
“Once Garry Ringrose was ruled out it was trying to keep as much continuity and cohesion as we could from previous campaigns.”
LOCKING IT DOWN
The second row is the area where Ireland are perhaps most injury-hit with Iain Henderson, Tadhg Beirne and now Toner all unavailable.
That means Roux – who wasn’t even in Schmidt’s initial 38-man squad for the Guinness Six Nations – will start at BT Murrayfield, after coming off the bench in Round One.
The Connacht man has been in good form for his club this season and Schmidt is convinced his pack won’t miss a beat.
“Quinn will share the lineout calling, probably with Pete (Peter O’Mahony),” explained Schmidt.
“There’s a fair bit of experience with Pete, Quinn came on and did it last week when he replaced Devin and I’ve no qualms about it – he’s done it a lot in training and for Connacht this year.
“I think it’s a fantastic opportunity. We could be stuck with a similar circumstance as four years ago (injuries at the World Cup).
“We need to be flexible, we need to be able to transition guys in and out as seamlessly as possible. It’s an opportunity and maybe there would have been (five changes) anyway.”
