Keith Earls: ‘I don’t think Joe would know anything about this squad’

It is impossible to banish the ghost of Joe Schmidt from conversation this week. As the Irish team pivot from beating Scotland to facing the All Blacks, Schmidt’s legacy is that he coached 15 of the current Irish squad at the 2019 Rugby World Cup. Four years later he’s back as the New Zealand attack coach with a license to haunt.

What, if any, of the Irish psyche he can impart to New Zealand is a debatable matter. In the double and triple bluff artistry of pre-match mind games, All Blacks coach Ian Foster fired the first volley this week. “He [Schmidt] knows the Irish well but that’s information that we’ve been tapping into [during] the last 12 months,” said Foster.

[ Gulf between experts and pints-in-hand bluffers is greater in rugby than any other sport ]

On Monday, Keith Earls wasn’t having any of it. The Munster winger was one of the six Irish backline players who travelled to Japan four years ago with Schmidt as coach before the team fell 46-14 to New Zealand in the quarter-finals. The 36-year-old Earls has been around the Irish team since 2008, when Declan Kidney first took over.

“I don’t think Joe would know anything about this squad,” he says. “We are a completely different squad. He probably knows things about individuals but, again, we have all changed our habits under this coaching staff and we genuinely don’t use any of the habits that Joe taught us. Look, he might have a thing on a couple of individuals. But we are certainly not the same team that played under Joe.”

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Earls didn’t play in the Chicago game against New Zealand in 2016, when Ireland ended a 111 year wait to win 40-29 under Schmidt. He had been suspended for two weeks following a red card in the previous Saturday’s Champions Cup win over Glasgow.

A further two wins in Dublin followed by a series win last summer, the first for an Irish team on New Zealand soil, and the mythical invincibility of the All Blacks has all but vanished. There is still admiration for how they remain consistently competitive at the very top of the sport, but the fear of believing they cannot be beaten has been consigned to history. Earls puts it more succinctly.

“We have some lads in the squad who are lucky enough to have beaten New Zealand more times than they have lost to them. Some of them haven’t lost to them,” he says. “Their confidence is mixed with our experience as well, so we can bring them down to a level head as well, if they start getting too confident. But that’s not in our squad.”

His initial taste of the All Blacks was in his first year as an international player. Raised on a diet of knowing they had won the first World Cup in 1987 and again when he was a professional player winning in 2011 and 2015 to become the first team to win the trophy three times, Earls faced New Zealand for the first time in Croke Park in 2008, losing 22-3.

There would be other beatings for eight more years. But the scar tissue that may have been there has been erased by Ireland’s more recent resurgence and a feeling that the number one ranking has been earned. There is no sense of imposter syndrome. Yet Earls, without the unease, continues to be deeply respectful of the All Blacks’ cutting edge and ability to play their best rugby under pressure.

[ By the numbers: Ireland produce their most efficient attacking display of World Cup ]

“Oh yeah, I still think they’re a world-class team. I had grown up watching them. They have conquered the world of rugby since I was a young lad. I think the view is different on ourselves. As Irish people we can lack a lot of confidence and can be a small bit too humble at times.

“You know, we’ve done an awful lot of work on ourselves and the coaches have done an awful lot of work on getting us to believe that we can play a certain brand of rugby that will make us compete with anyone.

“I think that was the most important thing for us, getting us to start believing in ourselves. The rugby that we play, if we can get it right on any day, which we have over the last number of years, we can compete with and beat most teams.”

Ireland’s evolution playing against New Zealand is not dissimilar to that of Earls’ personal journey. Careworn, homesick on tours and lacking confidence in the early years of his international career, he is now a chilled presence in the squad and one of Ireland’s centurions. Once shrinking under the threat of one of rugby’s power houses, the All Blacks have become a motivation and challenge that Ireland have and can meet.

[ Rugby World Cup: Ireland’s best yet to come, says Farrell, ahead of vengeful All Blacks showdown ]

“We have to back ourselves,” says Earls. “We can’t shy away from what needs to be done. We drew massive confidence from that [series win] but this tournament is a different animal. I know we have beaten New Zealand a few times in the last few years but they’ve obviously taught us one or two lessons as well in between that and beaten us by more than one score. So, we’re under no illusion over what’s coming at the weekend.”

That Schmidt was one of the early architects, who taught Earls to deal with pressure and prepare, makes his name in the conversation relevant. How relevant, Ireland can answer this week.