Schmidt legacy lives on in Irish rugby ecosystem

There's an old story from Joe Schmidt’s first stint in Irish rugby, as a player-coach with a Midlands League club in the early 1990s, that hinted that he was always going to change the game in this country.

The then 25-year-old asked the coaches at Mullingar RFC if there were enough balls for a training session. Yes, plenty, came the reply, one ball for the backs and one for the forwards.

But Schmidt wanted a minimum of one ball for every two players. They even half-joked that this could be some sort of scam where he might rush off back to New Zealand with a bagful of balls.

His philosophy was strong back then and by the time he departed after his second stint in Ireland in 2019, everything had different; he not only changed how the game was played in Ireland but also how the game was thought about.

While his final year in charge was memorable for all the wrong reasons, it’s always worth recapping what happened beforehand.

He twice won the Champions Cup with Leinster, and claimed a Celtic League and a Challenge Cup before joining Ireland as head coach.

Schmidt led Ireland to back-to-back Six Nations titles in his first two seasons, a series win in Australia, a first-ever Test win away to the Springboks, and a historic victory over his native New Zealand in 2016.

Ireland were valedictorian Grand Slam champions in 2018 after beating France and England away from home, and the first home victory over the All Blacks at the end of the same year was another memorable achievement.

As the team departed for the 2019 World Cup, Ireland were number one in the world for the first time. That was as good as it got.

Despite the disappointing manner in which his tenure finish, his immediate legacy was obvious and tangible.

The 59-year-old Kiwi