IRELAND HEAD COACH Joe Schmidt easily brushed off the suggestion that Ireland are favourites going into Saturday’s meeting with the All Blacks in Dublin.
New Zealand boss Steve Hansen had claimed that his world champions were underdogs going in to this fixture after the historic 40 – 29 defeat in Chicago on 5 November.
“You’d love to think that way. I don’t think he should become a bookmaker, I think we’re about 6/1,” said Schmidt before hastily adding that he and his squad are not allowed to bet on the outcome anyway.
“A team that have won 18 in a row against some of the best teams in the world, and by some margin… everyone deserves a hiccup.”
Schmidt also dismissed the notion that he will have newly designed plays and methods to overcome the All Blacks after implementing such a successful gameplan a fortnight ago.
“I don’t think we’ve got that many new tricks. We play in a similar sort of rhythm with minor amendments week-to-week pretty much since the World Cup.
“I don’t think there will be anything massively different. We’ll see what sort of conditions there are to influence how we play.
“We’ll see what sort of tricks Steve Hansen has up his sleeve, a couple of 6′ 7″ second rows aren’t bad ones to pull out.”
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