Joe Schmidt’s prizing of cutting edge over having a cut may make him the perfect fit for Ireland

Entering the 2014 Six Nations, Irish rugby is lucky. Not only is there a sense that Ireland might have the best coach in the tournament, this will be Joe Schmidt's first foray into the world's oldest tournament. This is going to be truly fascinating.

His initial outings in the Test arena, in last November’s Guinness Series, provided an intriguing foretaste.

After beating Samoa came Australia’s bloodless coup on a decidedly low-key Saturday at the Aviva. The following Sunday, emotional intensity and technical concentration and execution were married much more effectively as Ireland came within 20 seconds of an historic first win over New Zealand.

It appeared the players went into the Australia game overloaded on heightened technical demands and didn’t bring enough of the emotion and physicality, all the more so at international level with Ireland at play.

It all seemed a little too cerebral. Of course, that may be far too simplistic, but as Paul O’Connell said after the All Blacks game a week later, there has to be emotion too.

Maybe Schmidt had a slightly better understanding of that. Maybe O'Connell, Brian O'Driscoll and other team leaders were given their head more in the 24 or 48 hours before the New Zealand game. Maybe. Maybe not.

Emotion
Irish teams have always tended to draw heavily on emotion, in part because they were usually fighting against the odds. Mick Doyle's team may have been something of an exception with a brand of rugby that didn't draw so heavily on emotion and one-off big performances in winning the championship in 1985, but Munster, especially, were quick to dip into vast wells of emotion, perhaps spiced up with a perceived slight or two, all the more so when English clubs came calling to Thomond at Saturday tea-time.

The Irish team which drew heavily on Munster’s emotion and winning mentality further helped the rejuvenation after the turn of the Millennium, helped as they were by the emergence of an exceptional crop of players.

Michael Cheika injected plenty of emotion at Leinster and all the provinces have long since learned how to adopt “Heineken Cup mode”.

This has arguably been more important than, as the French and English would have it, the lack of relegation in the Rabo Pro12 or players being rested from league games.

Toulouse, Clermont and Toulon do the same and are similarly under the threat of not making the Top14’s top six, with relegation not an issue.

The Heineken Cup format perhaps suits the Irish mentality, with breathers before consecutive Cup games. The knock-out rounds, if reached, are even more favourably disposed to one-off performances, even if this can be complicated by Pro12 semis or finals.

The format also affords the luxury of a defeat along the way, as even peaking on successive weekends can be problematic. Look at Leinster, allowing for Northampton’s sense of pride and vengeance, along with the absence of Seán O’Brien, at the Aviva a week after their stunning performance in Franklin’s Garden. Ditto Ulster against the same opponents on the same weekends a year before.

As the squad with the least resources perhaps it is understandable that Connacht, newer to the Heineken Cup table, are more symptomatic of this than any Irish side.

Drawing on a higher emotional pitch than for League games (it's impossible to sustain this on a weekly basis) t their European form has been consistently better than their League form.

Indignities
Thus they can beat Toulouse away and if they don't get it right, suffer the indignities heaped upon them away to Saracens. Way back at the beginning of the professional era, a London Irish team drawn heavily on Irish players had the same peaks and troughs.

By contrast, Ireland have only won one Championship since 1985, with the format ever more compressed into five games over seven weekends. In this, Irish sides are not unlike French sides. It may partially explain why the French are so good at home, when the town church bells toll on match-day mornings and all that, yet they rarely bring the same emotion a week later on the road.

Yes, the French win their share of championships, but they have never won a World Cup, despite illuminating virtually every World Cup with the stand-out performance, be it beating Australia in the 1987 semi-finals, or the All Blacks twice in memorable knock-out matches.

As with their limp semi-final defeat in Paris against England a week after their heroics against New Zealand in Cardiff, very often they are at their most vulnerable a week later.

It would be no surprise if the French bring a fevered emotionally intensity for a one-off win over England this Saturday, but will they sustain it in the ensuing six weeks?

Schmidt’s’s Leinster were different. Aside from improving their passing, catching and finishing skills, Leinster became far more dictated by Mr Nice Guy’s ruthlessly demanding nature at Monday morning video reviews and in training.

Jamie Heaslip once revealed that when making an error in a match on a Saturday his mind flashed toward the ensuing Monday, and he had to erase the thought. Schmidt gets inside his players' heads as well as their hearts.

Underdog mentality
Schmidt helped change Leinster's mindset to that of a squad less reliant on one-off emotional performances based on an underdog mentality, to one which became more technical and performance-related, content with being favourites and could back-up performances with long unbeaten runs.

Schmidt's teams appear less "emotion-based", which, all the more so judging by his record with Leinster, may make him the perfect fit as Ireland coach as well.
gthornley@irishtimes.com