Paul O'Connell admits to adopting Joe Schmidt's laid-back coaching style
"Emotion is probably the icing on the cake now, whereas maybe back in my playing day it was the whole cake, we weren't too worried about the icing."
That Munster Heineken Cup winning firebrand captain Paul O'Connell has morphed into zen-like, soft-spoken and laid back coach Paul O'Connell is a sight to behold.
But it speaks to the idea that while you can take Joe Schmidt away from Irish rugby...you can't take Irish rugby away from Joe Schmidt - not yet anyway..
Ireland's entire coaching staff Andy Farrell, Simon Easterby, John Fogarty, Andrew Goodman and O'Connell have all either been hired by him, worked or played with him.
Circa two-thirds of Ireland's expected team selection for the game with Australia will have, most likely, played for Leinster or Ireland with him as coach.
"I suppose I was older when Joe came to Ireland," says the new, laidback, zen master O'Connell.
"I think the emotion is probably the icing on the cake now, whereas maybe back in my playing day it was the whole cake, we weren't too worried about the icing.
"It's less so now as a coach, you're probably trying to give the players a nice, simple plan and some simple information that can help them do the job, but you're trying to stay as clear as possible."
These days the players have differing motivations, they don't need to be lashed before the mast every time!
"Maybe their families are in the crowd, they're playing with their mates, they're doing something they dreamed of, so the emotion is always there for them. They probably don't need the likes of myself adding to it in any way.
"So I think it's something they've been really good at in recent years, managing that so it adds to their performance rather than maybe dulls their decision making or dulls their ability to handle a big moment or dulls their ability to handle a mistake.
"I think they've gotten really good at that in recent years."
Schmidt was capable of the hairdryer treatment but rarely used it then during a Monday morning review in the wake of a poor performance.
Continues O'Connell: "I think one of the things he was good at is letting you know what he expected of you, then you could go and chase that down. You knew that if you delivered A, B and C, you had a good chance of being picked.
"I probably stopped trying to be a second-row that I was seeing on TV that was doing things really well and trying to copy that. I knew what I had to be good at. I really enjoyed that.
"He was very clear in how he coached. I think coaching had moved on a lot but we were still relying a little bit on emotion at times whereas he was technically very good.
"Everyone talks about his detail. He has very good teaching principles. He wouldn't just tell you what he wanted you to do, through the sessions he would actually give you a pathway of how to change the habit or getting better at something. That was a really enjoyable aspect for me."
Ireland, for instance, still use the basics of Schmidt's breakdown ideas.
"Yeah, yeah, we would still do bits and pieces of what he had in place back in the day.
"Everyone is probably doing some kind of version of the same thing at the breakdown anyway but we still have bits and pieces of the language that he used to use. That was a big part of how he coached.
"He was the first ever coach, really, that I experienced that was very consistent in how he spoke about various parts of the game and because of that you had real clarity in what was expected in different parts of the game and the ruck was no different."
Yet for all the talk of Schmidt happening, it is an important game for the Ireland coach Andy Farrell as it is his last in charge before heading off on Lions sabbatical for almost 11 months.
O'Connell expects the group to be able to cope.
"I think we know what we stand for, which is an important part of a team, that you know exactly what you want to do, you're pretty clear on how you want to play the game, be it what you do at the ruck or what you do in defence or what you do in attack.
"Then it's just about getting more and more players comfortable with that, comfortable at delivering that, comfortable at driving that, because every campaign we have, when we review it, we generally come away thinking that the ceiling is so high.
"It's evolution, as you say, but it doesn't need to be complicated for it to get better.
"So I think we probably were disappointed at the start of the campaign in terms of how we performed against New Zealand, but generally when we've had those tough performances where we haven't delivered, we've been very good at learning from them and making the learnings from that something part of what we do go forward.
"Different players are at different levels as well, so I think when they get into camp, these guys, they're very good at training, they're very good at watching training together, they're very good at bringing people along with them.
"I think that's happening now from that game, and hopefully it continues to kick on. As I said, it's about evolving."
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