Joe Schmidt curses losing key starters; praises replacements

Frustrated, beaten up, disappointed. Joe Schmidt felt it all for his players after losing the second Test to New Zealand 21-9. But there was optimism there too with a number of young players thrown in early in the match to different positions, where they were excellent.

Centre Garry Ringrose, outhalf Paddy Jackson and flanker Josh van der Flier all rose to the challenge. The only negative thing on the night was that Ireland didn't win.

“I’m very frustrated. But to be honest I am very proud of the effort the guys put in,” said Schmidt. “When you get injuries to the hub . . . Robbie (Henshaw) and Johnny (Sexton) were immense in Chicago. Paddy had to come into 10 without a lot of preparation.

“Garry Ringrose hasn’t had a lot of time or opportunity to play 12 . . . slotted in a couple of times during training. I thought he did a huge job.

“Josh van der Flier was into the game early. One of the things we wanted to do today – we’re building a bit of depth and some of those guys really stood up.”

Schmidt pointed out that Ireland had opportunity but were held up or dropped the ball in excellent positions. In fact Schmidt believes the Irish team crossed the line as often as New Zealand did for their three tries.

“Yes we are frustrated because when you put so much into a game if you don’t get the result . . . at 14-9 I thought that we were a chance. I really did with some of the guys coming off the bench.

"Iain Henderson, Cian Healy, Seán Cronin, guys who know how to contribute at the level and I thought that we dropped a couple of balls very close to the line, one at the back of a lineout on a planned move. If we hold on to it we score.

“Those are the fine margins. Even in the first half Seán went very close to scoring. Jamie went very close to scoring. We got held up over the line a couple of times. You don’t get closer than that without actually scoring so yeah it is frustrating.”

Ireland lost some shape because of the forced changes early in the game with Henshaw departing on 11 minutes and Jackson coming in for Sexton on 17 minutes. Van der Flier was also a first half entry for CJ Stander.

Sexton injured his other hamstring with Stander, Henshaw and also Rob Kearney going off with head injuries.

“Your 10 and your 12 run a lot of your game . . . we did lose our shape,” said Schmidt.

“At the same time we put them under immense pressure. I think they were pretty relived to get off the pitch, even though they were attacking at the end.

“To be fair to them they don’t need too many invitations. The first try they got was a pretty effective one. I don’t think we got the rub of the green on the other two calls. That’s something that could be a distraction. It’s not up to us to make those decisions. We’ve got to get on and focus on what we can do better.”

Neither Schmidt nor captain Rory Best would be drawn into issues with the South African referee Jaco Peyper, who declined to look at a replay of the third All Black try despite Best running from the Irish posts for 40 yards to inform him about a suspect forward pass.

“Look, we just went up to him and said to take a look at it,” said Best. “He said he can’t go (to TMO) on a captain’s call which I suppose is fair enough.

“But it was on the big screen. He said he has a team to look at that and that he can’t be influenced too much by the captain. I tried to explain that there was a lot at stake to not take a look.

“He has people upstairs in front of the TV that are watching that and he has to trust them. We’ll leave that to the assessors.

“When you have a big game like that and it was a one score game at that time, we need to feel that we have a chance to get a call on that.”

Schmidt was also disinclined to criticise Peyper.

“We’ll feed our feedback through the appropriate channels,” said Schmidt. “They’ll send out edicts and will try and keep the game safe and make it enjoyable.

“I think the one thing I will say for the players, is that they enjoyed rolling their sleeves up and giving it their best shot. They are fatigued. We’ve got a few guys who won’t be able to play next week, that’s frustrating but at the same time, it will afford another opportunity to someone else.”