Ireland prepared to face the man with the plan

After his time playing for Joe Schmidt with Leinster and Ireland, Gordon D’Arcy is more familiar than most with his strengths as a coach, rating him as the “best I have played under in analysing the opposition”. He is, he writes, “the perennial man with a plan”, so when his Australia side take on Ireland in Dublin on Saturday, they’ll go in to the battle well prepared, Schmidt having forensically examined every aspect of Ireland’s game. Gordon suspects, though, that Andy Farrell’s charges will be “up to the task” after their confident “noise-cancelling” performance against Fiji.
When Schmidt succeeded Eddie Jones in the Australia job, after their woeful World Cup, his task was a meaty one: MAFA (“make Australia formidable again”). In his ‘View from Australia’ piece, Jonathan Drennan updates us on his progress. “After so much negativity for the Wallabies, there is finally some cautious hope,” he says.
Paul O’Connell came under Schmidt’s influence towards the end of his career with Ireland, Johnny Watterson hearing him salute the Kiwi’s coaching qualities. “He still has a bit of an influence in here in terms of how we play the game,” he said.
O’Connell is sticking with his role as Ireland forwards coach, ruling himself out of the running for the Munster job. His former comrade Denis Leamy has done the same, he’s content with his job as an assistant with Munster for the next few years. Attack coach Mike Prendergast is, then, the firm favourite to succeed Graham Rowntree.
In football, Gavin Cummiskey brings some good news: the Republic of Ireland will, more than likely, feature at Euro 2028 even if they don’t qualify. “Huh,” you say? It’s largely due to Casement Park remaining hopelessly undeveloped. Gavin explains all.
And he also looks ahead to Ireland’s Euro 2025 play-off against Wales, the away leg taking place on Friday in Cardiff, Eileen Gleeson’s team attempting to reach back-to-back major tournaments. None of her home-based players will benefit from centralised training sessions, though, the FAI confirming on Tuesday that financial restraints mean they won’t be revived.
And ahead of this weekend’s Special Congress, Seán Moran looks at the chances of the Football Review Committee’s rule-tweaking being waved through. The consensus has largely been that something needed to be done about the game, but “whether the rules are to apply immediately at all levels within the GAA is likely to be the most serious battleground on Saturday”.
TV Watch: The pick of tonight’s Champions League games looks like being the meeting of Liverpool and Real Madrid at Anfield (RTÉ 2, Premier Sports 1 and TNT Sports 1), while Aston Villa host Juventus (Virgin Media More and TNT Sports 2) and Celtic are at home to Club Brugge (Virgin Media Two and TNT Sports 3). All three games kick off at 8.0.