THERE MAY BE 18 Leinster players in the current Ireland squad but, Gordon D’Arcy told us, they are not getting it easy from their new/old gaffer.
The inside centre is taking his beard into November and beyond — there are no plans to shave off his impressive chin-warmer. The same goes for his place in the Ireland XV. D’Arcy is focused on the task at hand — Samoa, Australia and New Zealand — and determined to keep head coach Joe Schmidt company while he rebuilds a wounded Ireland.
D’Arcy told TheScore.ie, “You know what you’re going to get with Joe and, with the guys that trained with him before, he lived up to those expectations. Everybody is getting on board, getting their details right. Everybody, more or less, is getting up to Joe’s high standards.
“It’s completely different but it was always going to be that. Joe is a different to any other coach we’ve had [with Ireland] before. Us Leinster guys, if we hadn’t been coached by him, we would have been as shocked as anybody. Once you get over the initial shock, and his demand for standards, you realise that you’ve got to hit those standards if you want to play.”
Schmidt, down with his media duties at Carton House, then strolls behind the inside centre and jokes that he is getting all player interview recordings sent on for his perusal. D’Arcy waits until his former Leinster coach is out of ear’s reach before revealing the Kiwi’s vocal exhortations at training.
He’s just a constant voice and he demands everything is being done right. If you’re running a line and you’re running empty, he doesn’t want you running with your hands down. He’s going to pick on you as much as he’ll pick on the other guy with the ball, that he’s got his running line right.”
D’Arcy added, “The thing is, in a move, there’s not just one person or two people. There’s seven, eight, nine involved and every one of those players have to be in motion and doing the exact same thing. Because he is seeing everything, it comes out as he sees it. The challenge to us is, the day we make him as quiet as possible we know we’re doing something right.”
Ireland are down six players, including Paul O’Connell and Cian Healy, from training this week but all of the walking wounded have been present for every session, on a watching brief as their teammates learn from a new playbook.
“In a national camp,” says D’Arcy, “you’re with the best players and they’re hungry to learn new things. The learning curve is very, very sharp. Two or three sessions and everyone has it. There has been a steep progression since Monday nothing nothing that we can’t handle.”
Schmidt, in effect, has two weeks to impose a scaled down version of his gameplan. Samoa may be ranked higher but a Pacific Island success at Lansdowne Road would still be a shock. A win, by any means, is the priority before Australia and New Zealand come into view.
“It hasn’t been a great last eight to 10, 10 to 12 internationals,” admitted D’Arcy. “Lot of injuries, lot of transition, things didn’t go our way, whatever. At the end of the day, now, we have to start winning.
“We have to win all our three matches. There’s a change in coaches and set-up but we have to win to start the rebuilding and the belief in the Irish team. All three teams are ahead of us in the rugby rankings.”
