JOE SCHMIDT SAYS he’s targeting a top-two placement, a level of detail we’re not used to from Irish coaches.

It would be a massive improvement on last year, but he’s not being delusional. It may be his first season at international level but personnel-wise, the New Zealander has very few excuses for failure.

Paul O’Connell has suggested this side are as good as the one that won the Grand Slam in 2009. He has a point. Rob Kearney, Brian O’Driscoll, Gordon D’Arcy, Paul O’Connell, Jamie Heaslip and Luke Fitzgerald are all still involved. Kearney is as good as he was then. O’Connell is smarter and better at offloading and just as powerful. Heaslip’s best-ever form was in 2009, but this is the second best run of his career, which is to say, still world class.

Luke Fitzgerald should start on Sunday. His is perhaps the most interesting story of all. He’s improved his trail runs and his ball control in contact, he’s better under high balls, makes better decisions and has lost no pace. He also knows what failure is now. He could once again be a superstar.

Against New Zealand D’arcy had arguably his best ever game for club or country, an 80-minute extravaganza. Joe Schmidt knows how to get the best out of him mentally and physically. O’Driscoll is not as consistently good now as he was then, but is suffering from the same sort of analysis that all ageing players must endure. They go through peaks and troughs in form, the same as younger players, but when they hit the lows its assumed the problem is terminal. O’Driscoll has to play well three more times in his life, against Wales, France and England. Undoubtedly, that’s the sort of target that gets the best out of him.

Leinster man Luke Fitzgerald should start on Sunday. Pic: INPHO/Billy Stickland

Elsewhere, Cian Healy and Conor Murray are improvements on 2009. No matter who starts at openside and blindside they won’t be as good as Ferris and David Wallace but if Donnacha Ryan and Tommy Bowe get fit in a week or two, then Ireland are in really good shape. Rory Best isn’t as consistent or inspiring as Jerry Flannery but there’s nothing between Mike Ross and John Hayes.  The most contentious one is O’Gara versus Sexton, but realistically we will have to watch Sexton for a few more years before declaring either a winner. All in all, though, nobody could argue the personnel are appreciably worse or better than in Ireland’s greatest ever year.

Old rivals

Wales have some brilliant players in key position, but this has never felt like a dominant team in the way England were so fearsome in the early 2000s or France were in the late 80s. It’s taken a while for Irish fans to accept they’re as good as us, because as impressive as George North and Mike Phillips and Alun Wyn Jones have been, their starting XVs are usually no better than Ireland’s.

Gatland is currently the most successful coach in European rugby, but Saint Andre, Stuart Lancaster and Joe Schmidt will all be expected to find a solution to the problems his sides pose. We’ve been told by ex players and current players and coaches and analysts and journalists that there is no great complexity to what Gatland does. He gets players into great condition, makes them believe they’re the fittest side, prioritises certain competitions, ensures players know exactly what’s expected of them, and ultimately produces the hardest working team in the tournament. The things he does off the pitch are more impressive than his gameplan or his backline moves or analysis of the opposition.

Stuart Barnes makes the point that when Gatland faces sides who match Wales for intensity and workrate, or who execute complex moves, they struggle. The reason nations so rarely dominate year on year in this competition is the gameplans are so exposed, and eventually they get worked out. The opposition have had enough time to work out this Welsh team, with Stuart Lancaster the one under most pressure to do so.

The one most likely to do it though, you sense, is the master of fine detail, Joe Schmidt.

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