JOE SCHMIDT WASN’T the only former Ireland coach who helped to plot their World Cup downfall with New Zealand.
All Blacks scrum coach Greg Feek is another man who spent a big portion of his career working in Ireland, joining Schmidt in Leinster in 2010 and then jumping full-time to the national team in 2014.
Feek helped coach Ireland to their first-ever wins over the All Blacks, as well as the 2018 Grand Slam, and two other Six Nations titles. He moved on from Ireland after the 2019 World Cup and having spent some time coaching in Japan, joined the All Blacks set-up in 2020.
Feek worked closely with the likes of Andrew Porter, Tadhg Furlong, Finlay Bealham, and Dave Kilcoyne during his time with Ireland, so it must have been an interesting challenge to coach against them in the quarter-finals of this World Cup.
While there had been an expectation that the Irish front row could get the edge on the All Blacks, it proved to be the other way around as the Kiwis won three scrum penalties that proved to be key.
And while Ireland are watching on from home now, Feek is central to the All Blacks’ plans for the World Cup final on Saturday against South Africa, who are sure to provide a massive test of the New Zealanders’ scrum.
“He has done a great job,” said New Zealand forwards coach Jason Ryan of Feek’s influence on the group.
“I’m really impressed with how he has taken our forward pack, especially in the scrum, our props. He has got a lot of international experience as well, 100 plus Tests for Ireland.
“He has got the detail there and done some good work with the boys. And he has got good banter.”
Ryan and Feek know there is a ferocious test of the Kiwi forwards coming on Saturday night in Paris.
As the Springboks showed once again last weekend in their dramatic semi-final win over England, their ‘Bomb Squad’ bench is a force to be reckoned with.
“It would be good to take some gas out of that bomb, wouldn’t it?” said Ryan.
“They have got their DNA as a forward pack. We’ve got trust in our plan this week and we believe we will be able to be there right until the end.”
All Blacks replacement back row Dalton Papali’i revealed that the New Zealanders have come up with a nickname for their own bench.
“I’ve got a little group happening in the team room at our hotel and we’re watching Band of Brothers and the 101st Airborne and their Easy Company,” said Papali’i.
“So, I made a little joke saying, ‘You know they’ve got the ‘Bomb Squad’, so we could have the ‘Easy Company’. We want to go and finish the job and be in the trenches.’
“Talking about the Bomb Squad, man they’ve proven themselves. They can come on and change a game like that. So, we sort of need to identify whoever is on the bench and that, need to really be screwed on up top and give it hell.”
Replacement loosehead prop Ox Nché was the star of the show for the Boks against England, providing scrummaging might off the bench, and Ryan knows he will need to be nullified.
“He is some human, isn’t he?” said Ryan. “Wow. He is pretty strong at what he does but we’ve got a pretty good plan we believe in as well. We’ll be up for it.”
Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus has yet to address the media this week but the New Zealand media appear to think he will look to stir the plot at some stage before the final.
Ryan was given a tricky question today when he was asked to sum up Erasmus in three words.
“Passionate, authentic… I haven’t got another one,” said Ryan.
“That’ll do. I haven’t thought about Rassie at all, to be honest.”