Joe Schmidt rejects favourites tag for Six Nations

Two events – from a personnel perspective – will define the opening fortnight of Ireland's Six Nations against Italy in Rome and France at the Aviva Stadium as Joe Schmidt's side look to retain their title.

The first concerns training at Carton House this morning, after which Schmidt will make a decision on what if any role Sean O’Brien will have in the Wolfhounds team to face the England Saxons in Cork tomorrow.

“Sean trained really well on Tuesday,” said the Irish coach. “It wasn’t a contact session so there is still a box to be ticked there, but we know he is very close. It would depend a little bit on Thursday training to be honest. If we sense it is not the right time we will wait a week. Again at this time with the year that it is, we would rather err on the side of caution.”

The second issue relates to who will wear the number 10 jersey against Italy. It's a straight dispute between Ian Madigan and Ian Keatley with the former expected to be given the chance to press his claim against the England Saxons.

High level

“I can honestly say I haven’t [made up my mind about who will start against Italy],” the New Zealander said. “One of them will obviously play on Friday night and we’ll make a decision post that because we’ll have to, really, so that we can be as well prepared as we can be for the following weekend.”

Publicly Schmidt has challenged whoever occupies Ireland’s outhalf berth in Rome to play at a sufficiently high level to ensure Jonathan Sexton’s return to the national side, fitness permitting, is not a fait accompli.

“I’d love that to be the case. I think supporters would like that to be the case because if they do that we’ve had a better chance of beating Italy because they’ve [Madigan or Keatley] performed to a standard and at the same time we don’t feel as much pressure to get Johnny back on the pitch.

“I guess part of the equation is how well Ian Madigan or Ian Keatley go in Italy. One of the things that’s been a consistent feature, is when we’ve lost guys who weren’t available, other guys have stepped up. The wingers last season for example; we had different wingers in the autumn and they did pretty well.

“Then it comes to the Six Nations and those two guys are out injured and the guys who step in, one of them is the Player of the Year and the other one makes more metres or tackle breaks than any other player we’ve got.

“So it would be great if people could keep putting pressure on each other. I haven’t thought too far past Italy to be honest, so whatever happens in Italy will shape a little bit of the thinking regarding France.”

The Ireland coach was quick to stress that he would have no qualms parachuting Sexton straight into the team if required. The Racing Metro 92 outhalf, who has been absent due to concussion protocols, will be cleared to play by the end of next week and in a position to resume contact on Monday week.

Cian Healy remains a week or two away in his rehabilitation but Schmidt did give him "an outside chance" of being considered for some part in the match squad for the game against France.

Selections “Part of our selection process is based on training,” Schmidt said “If we based it on two 40-minute windows when we have him for the week, I think it would be a very narrow perspective to take and try to make selections: we will try to calculate those decisions post having seen him train.”

According to the other nations, Ireland, defending champions and unbeaten in the November Test series start the upcoming Six Nations as favourites. Schmidt wasn’t interested.

“We didn’t know we were favourites until we got here. It is like world rankings, it can be a distraction that does not add value for us.

“I think one of the best performances last year, in the entire year, was at Twickenham. I thought we played really well. To go to Twickenham, to a really strong and progressive England side, I thought was a really good effort. If that happened I am not going to tear up the template, I am going to have to fine tune and hopefully that is sufficient to both get the performance and the result.

Conditions change

“[Success] for us, it’s a continuation of the improvements we are looking for in the way we play the game, the accuracy we are looking for depending on how we are trying to play. There is a misnomer that we play a certain way. We adapt as you have got to adapt. Ground conditions change, the sort of opponents you have changes.

“You have got to be adaptable so success for us will be in those tangible performance-related areas. If we can get in the top two or three again, if you can stay in the top half when there is such tough matches coming up – particularly because we go away first game to a team that we lost to last time and the time before managed a very skinny result in the last few minutes.

“Last year on the basis of one pass that goes forward, we probably should have finished third and we managed to get a win. We worked really hard through the tournament and we got some good wins. I’m not saying we didn’t deserve it, but I am saying we won’t control our own destiny completely.

"I'd love to build expectation further by getting some good results but for us it is that we consolidate further, looking to build a broader base because a World Cup will not be won with 15 players."

But first there are more pressing matters in Carton House and Cork.