Beware the Wallabies’ four-man lineout.
It is 2014 and we have England right where we want them. Inside a packed Twickenham, lineout just outside the 22, every green jersey has a specific job to do.
Devin Toner taps down and I go straight to Jamie Heaslip who hits into some big bodies.
Two-second ruck. Toner covers some amount of ground to reappear in midfield and carry over the 22. Peter O’Mahony removes Joe Launchbury from the edge of the ruck.
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I go back left to Jamie and loop around him (running a decoy). Paul O’Connell tugs at Launchbury’s arm as Rob Kearney powers on to Heaslip’s reverse pass, sprinting clean through a hole in the white wall.
Johnny Sexton is on Rob’s shoulder in case the England fullback Mike Brown, who is wrong-footed by my movement, recovers to make a try-saving tackle.
Kearney goes under the posts, untouched, for a perfect try off three phases – directly from the brain of Ireland’s new head coach.
At Munster, we could never figure out Joe Schmidt’s Leinster. The breakdown never went our way and we needed the Monday morning video session to understand how Leinster had opened us up. You’d see it at every other ruck – one of their players would deliberately “clean long”, thereby taking out a defender.
Like the way Pete removed Launchbury.
The mistake most teams made at this juncture was to expect Schmidt’s players to repeat what worked the previous week. Never assume anything when playing against a side coached by Joe.
Plenty of the Lions, players and coaches, have had their careers shaped by him. All that knowledge, coupled with his established attacking patterns, can be used against you. A small tweak is enough to tear the Lions open at the seams.
Remember Richie Mo’unga in Paris?
At a crucial moment during this Lions Test series in Australia, I guarantee that we will see something from the Wallabies attack that a Schmidt team has not previously executed.
In Joe’s head, rugby is a chess match. It is about everyone executing the tiny details. It was a relief going into Irish camp under him in 2013. The Munster, Ulster and Connacht lads had suffered enough.
In that first November series, we almost beat the All Blacks. We were still learning to reduce the errors and penalty count to single figures. We learned enough to beat New Zealand in Chicago and again in Dublin.
It is always about manufacturing space. Like the CJ Stander try, back at Twickenham for the Grand Slam in 2018.
Four-man lineout. Decoy runners everywhere. Sexton goes on a dummy loop around Tadhg Furlong, who pops a pass for Bundee Aki to split the seams.
CJ was on his shoulder.
Every single movement by every Irish player was mapped out and practised like an NFL playbook.
Then there was the 2023 World Cup quarter-final at Stade de France, when New Zealand assistant coach Schmidt came back to haunt Ireland.
The four-man lineout looked familiar. Never assume anything. Will Jordan’s try was a twist on what Ireland had produced in the past. It was a system error by our defence but Joe’s fingerprints were all over that Mo’unga line break at first receiver, direct from the lineout.
Jordan was on his shoulder.
That night, the All Blacks frustrated the hell out of us. We were Munster against Leinster all over again as they scored two tries off first-phase attacks while we had to work incredibly hard for every point.
The Wallabies and Joe would like nothing more than to drag the Lions into a similar, energy-sapping scenario. If the Lions are forced to commit more than two players to successive breakdowns, we have ourselves a serious contest.
The difference between Jamison Gibson-Park getting two-second or five-second ruck ball could be the winning and losing of the series.
Like that World Cup quarter-final, there is a blueprint to beat an Andy Farrell team, although the Wallabies in 2025 would need to be as lethal as the All Blacks in 2023.
Farrell has to be relishing the chance to match up against Schmidt’s tactical brain. Joe is no different. Everyone knows everyone else extremely well.
Farrell won’t have time for second guessing Schmidt so that that role could fall to Sexton. We used to call Johnny “Joe’s son” as they were so aligned in camp. They would discuss potential scenarios for hours down in Carton House.
Johnny was Joe’s mind-in-motion on the pitch. I am not sure the Wallabies possesses a similar on-field general.
What they do have is Joseph Suaalii. This Rugby League superstar is a cross between Israel Folau and Sonny Bill Williams. Against England last November, he repeatedly soared over Maro Itoje to win back Aussie restarts. Itoje was being lifted by his props.
One way to avoid a close series is for the Lions to obliterate the Wallaby pack from kick-off. Gain a foothold in their 22 and let Dan Sheehan pilot tries off the driving maul. Take the coach out of the game.
