Lawrence Dallaglio: British and Irish Lions must be wary of Joe Schmidt’s experience

Former England captain Lawrence Dallaglio believes Australia coach Joe Schmidt’s experience will be a major factor in the upcoming Lions tour.

The Lions are clear favourites in the sports betting odds for the tour of Australia, with the first Test of three kicking off in Brisbane on 19 July. However, Wallabies coach Schmidt has plenty of experience of southern hemisphere rugby, having previously coached Ireland for six years, and Dallaglio expects the home side to win at least one Test.

In our exclusive interview, the World Cup winner also discusses his own experiences playing for the Lions and picks out some of the key players for the tour ahead.

What’s the difference from playing with a set of players for England to playing with players from other countries for the Lions?

Everything about a Lions tour, if you think about it, is set up to fail. You are uniquely picked from four different countries, but maybe historically and in lots of other ways don’t necessarily like each other. You are enemies for four years and then for a brief period of time, you come together to become teammates. You fly to the other side of the world, you play against one of the teams from the southern hemisphere who are usually one of the best teams in the world, over in their country. You have a week to prepare together as a group and everything about it is quite a unique challenge.

Everyone that gets picked for the Lions is currently used to being a No. 1 selection in their own country, so all of the players start on a level playing field and then come together and try to compete for the No. 1 jersey, and it is is a challenge. That’s what makes it so special, and that’s what makes it so unique. I keep saying this, but there’s been lots of Lions tours since 1888 but there haven’t been that many that have come back victorious. Clearly, it’s not an the easy thing to do. But it is it’s still a special achievement for any player. It adds that feeling of almost special forces about it. You’re the best of the best and are in the top per cent of each of the top home unions.

I hope the players are genuinely very excited about it and all I can say, the nine-and-a-half weeks or so that I had in South Africa in 1997 as a Lions squad member was probably the best nine-and-a-half weeks that I’ve ever had in my life as a rugby player, and as an experience outside of family and childbirth and all those wonderful things. It’s probably the best nine-and-a-half weeks of your life. The rewards are there for the players.

The Lions haven’t toured Australia in 12 years, how has the structure of Australian rugby and the Lions evolved since then?

Well, it’s a different game. There’s always cycles, and Test matches tend to be a lot more high-scoring these days. The nature of the way the squads are made up, the set piece is still a huge part of the game, as is kicking, defence, tackling and all the various things that you need. But you look at benches these days, they tend to be much more towards a 6-2 two split, even a 7-1 split so it’s a very much different in terms of mechanics and the different way that teams are made up. I think the idea is from the Lions’ perspective is to be able to play in lots of different ways, to have the foundations of the game that are strong. Set pieces, strong line outs, restarts and all of the things that are the bedrock of the foundation, the oxygen from which you can build on.

I would expect the Lions to have to try and have those kind of things in place and then the freedom within a certain framework to be able to play and to use the strength that they have, whether that be through their kicking game or through their running games. It’s the strength of rugby, it’s always had a certain identity about it and they’ll be looking to try and match the Lions in certain areas like set pieces and make sure that they have at least parity, and the Australians are all about that freedom of expression to use ball in hand as much as possible, but I do feel like the Lions have got a lot of different ways that they can play together. It’s not about just picking one particular kind of way of playing like Ireland or England or Scotland or Wales, it’s about fusing a number of those things together.

What have you made of Joe Schmidt as Australia’s coach?

Australia struggled two or three years ago, but I think since Joe’s arrival back in Australia, [the impact has been] twofold. I’ve been watching a lot of rugby over in the southern hemisphere. He’s had a pretty significant impact already in the team. They seem to have a cohesion and a belief, more importantly in understanding of what it is they’re trying to do as a rugby team on and off the field. Pre-Joe Schmidt, there were huge amounts of structural changes across Australian rugby, chairman president, all sorts of off-field antics and disagreements, but they all seem to be firmly behind them right now, and Joe has obviously got a huge amount of experience of coaching Ireland and a knowledge and an understanding of northern hemisphere rugby, having spent a lot of time over here. He’s also brought in Les Kiss and one or two other coaches, even Mike Catt who’s been over there with the Waratahs. There’s a lot of people who understand the northern hemisphere game and the threat and the challenge that’s coming over from the British and Irish Lions.

I’ve watched Super Rugby the season, the Brumbies did exceptionally well, played some great rugby throughout, got to the semi-finals but were ultimately beaten by the Chiefs in the end, and the Reds were doing pretty well as well. The Lions, for the first time in a long time, go down there as favourites, but I can assure you that anyone thinks that the Australian series will be a formality for the Lions should think again, because I think it would be a significant challenge. Injuries play a big part in both the Lions and Australia. If they can limit the number of injuries to frontline players, then it allows the Test series to be as competitive as it possibly can be. But I’ll be very surprised if the Lions went down there and Australia didn’t win at least one Test match, especially on home soil. it makes almost that first test that they play one of the key ones throughout the series.

How big of an advantage is the experience of Schmidt for Australia ahead of the tour? 

I think it’s a significant one because not only is Joe responsible for giving his own team structure, understanding and clarity about what they’re trying to achieve as a group, but also it’s about understanding the tactical battle and the technical battle required to beat teams from the northern hemisphere. Coaching Ireland, he knows the players inside out. He’s got a deep appreciation of the game, and as I said, there wouldn’t be necessarily the element of complacency or the element of surprise that they exist if he didn’t have that kind of level of experience. I think it is an advantage but that said, this team knows each other very well, the players know each other a little bit better than they ever used to and I just think and I hope it would be a very competitive test series and a very exciting one, because the sport and both sides of the world needs it, and so do the Lions. 

How important is Will Skelton for Australia and what role should he play? Do you think the Lions will fear him because of the qualities that he possesses? 

Any player that’s got that much experience, that much quality, you’d want to be available for their country. I think it remains to be seen whether he’s drafted in or brought in but he has enormous experience of playing in the northern hemisphere. He’s won the European Cup with Saracens, he’s a double Europe Cup winner with La Rochelle, and he’s played Test rugby at the highest level.  He’s a machine and is still a man mountain. Physically, he’d be a huge boost to any team that he played in. In terms of his experience and his personality, I think he would add to any Australian’s dressing room, so he’d definitely be a positive and he’s great for fans from both sides of the world to watch as well.

I’m hoping that he’s involved in the matches and the Test series, but it’s not one that I’ll be pushing for in a hurry because he’s a world-class player and a very good player. I’m looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds and for him particularly. 

Josh van der Flier and Jack Conan will both be pressing to get into that starting lineup. What do you make of both players? 

They’re both part of the incredibly successful team in Leinster. They’ve now added to their trophy cabinet having lost the European Cup semi-final. Josh van der Flier and Jack Conan were the outstanding Irish players of the same year as well. Both of those two players maybe had slightly – and when I say slightly, you’ve got to take that with a pinch of salt – lower-profile campaigns this time around. But that was only by the high standards that they had achieved and celebrated the year before. But towards the end of this year, I thought Van der Flier had a strong semi-final and final in the Champions Cup and Jack Conan produced some of his best rugby towards the end, both of which have got selected on this year’s Lions tour. Maybe they’re coming to the boil at the right time, maybe they have hit some form at the right time, and I would expect both of them to be competing toe to toe with the likes of Jac Morgan from Wales, and Henry Pollock and Tom Curry from England. As I said, there’s a lot to be very competitive about and excited about.

From 1997, only four Irish players were in the squad, not far from how many Welsh players are in this time around. In that Test series, what do you recall of the contributions of Wood, Wallace, Davidson and Miller? 

Huge. The final makeup of the Test squad is unknown as yet, but every single person that gets picked to represent the Lions is an out-and-out outstanding player. Keith Wood’s iconic performances in the Lions series in South Africa, be it in the dressing room beforehand or on the pitch during the game, he’s kicking ahead. Paul Wallace was unfancied to be our first choice for the three Test matches, but he was. Jeremy Davidson maybe picked someone like Simon Shaw at the middle of the lineout and others in fact to partner Martin Johnson. It was truly iconic. There’s a couple of Welsh this time around, there’s obviously quite a few Scotsmen so it’s what makes the Lions such a fascinating one to unpick and to put together again, because no one’s ever quite sure until the week in the Test series who’s going to be in the final makeup for that team. That’s what makes it so special. 

You spoke really well about foreign players representing the Lions. Do you understand the criticisms from the likes of Willie John McBride and Danny Care, who really proved themselves for their adopted countries?

It’s a tough one. I was lucky enough to play 85 times to England. I was born in London. I felt very much English, and therefore I played for England, but I can tell you now with a name like Lorenzo Bruno Nero Dallaglio, it’s anything but English, it’s in fact an Italian name. With a mother whose parents were from Malow in Ireland, in County Cork, had I not got picked for England, and there’s every chance I would have gone cap in hand to both Italy, and then Ireland and asked them to play international rugby. The qualification period is the qualification period, whether we like it or not. It used to be three years, it’s now a residency, it’s now five years. I don’t know anyone who is 100 per cent born and bred in one country. We’re all mongrels now and, with one better expression, we’re all cross breeds of different countries now. 

I would have represented Ireland and Italy with the same amount of passion as I represented England. But I played for England so I don’t know how you can blame the players in any way whatsoever. The Lions will pick within the framework of what they’re allowed to pick. The All Blacks have been doing it for years. They may have ended up including players who originally were born in maybe the Pacific Islands, that’s just the way it works. I’m not saying that that’s a good or bad thing. Everyone wants to play international rugby, and the Lions is international rugby so I think it’s just more reflective of the sign of the times where we live in now. When I first played for England, nearly every single member of that team was probably born and bred in England. Nowadays, that doesn’t happen. But it’s the same in every other country.

People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. Certain countries are a bit further down the line in how they select their players than others. Certain countries have to throw their net a bit wider, maybe than other countries because they don’t have the conveyor belt of players that want to get picked. I don’t really have a view on it either way. All I would say and tell you now, hand on heart, is if I didn’t play for England and I hadn’t played for England, there was every chance I would have gone knocking on Ireland’s door or Italy’s door and have begged them to play international rugby. Whether they said yes or not is another matter. 

What was it like winning the World Cup in 2003 and what was Martin Johnson like as a captain and player?

We were the No. 1 side of the world, and we had been unbeaten pretty much since 2001. We’d certainly beaten the southern hemisphere teams home and away for the best part of about three years. We went into that World Cup with every expectation of winning it ourselves. With that comes a certain amount of pressure. We won the Six Nations that year beating Ireland by 40-odd points at Lansdowne Road, we went on tour to Australia and New Zealand that summer in 2003. We beat New Zealand in Wellington, we beat Australia in Melbourne, and we went back to the World Cup. We didn’t play our best rugby in that tournament because of maybe a mixture of being favourites and everyone playing their best game against us. But we had a bit of a wobble against Wales in the quarter-final before winning quite comfortably in the end. We had our best performance against France in the rain in Sydney, in the semi-final, and then we go into the final against Australia. 

Maybe we expected to be playing New Zealand, not Australia, but to play the host nation in their own country in a World Cup final is a dream come true. We had beaten them seven times in the previous three years, so we knew were better side than them, they knew we were better side than them, but we still had to go out there and prove it. As it turned out, it took quite a bit to prove. England are the only nation in sporting history that have been in the football, rugby and cricket World Cup finals and won all three of them. But all three of them have gone through extra time, so we clearly love a bit of drama in the UK, and we made it a lot more dramatic than it probably needed to be. We could have and should have been out of sight by half time, but we weren’t and that’s just the way it goes. It was a special day for us. We got over the line, a big relief and obviously one of the proudest moments of English sporting history, and that England team was never the same again after that. For that moment, it was a pretty cool time, and I think for most people to be back in England, or in Australia watching it live, whether you’re in your rugby club at 9am or back home being slightly refreshed at that time in the morning is a memory that will live with you for the rest of your life. 

It’s about shared moments and that was certainly a very a very special one, and England’s first and only World Cup success, because it’s obviously been dominated by the southern hemisphere. We probably should have won a couple of finals since then and for whatever reason, we haven’t quite managed to get over the line. But as we all know, it’s not easy winning World Cup as we showed.

What’s your thoughts on Eddie Jones?

Eddie is a really interesting guy. He’s a great man, a very likeable, very intense person, but also a lot of fun as well and quite loose. We were chatting away, and he’d make you laugh, he’s got a little great sense of humour, and he’s a good guy. If you look at his track record in the game, he’s got a huge amount to offer the sport. He’s made a big difference in Australian rugby, where he started to help them to beat the All Blacks on a regular basis. He’s a bit like Jose Mourinho, he comes in and a makes an immediate impact and has an immediate effect on teams that he’s involved with. He takes them to a better place than when he first started, and then, the only downside is, he probably hangs around a bit too longer than he needs to. He stayed on in Australia for two years longer than he should have done and it ended in tears, and he probably stayed on with England a couple more years longer than he should have done, and it also ended in tears. He’s obviously got very good timing in starting a job, he just needs to get the same timing when he leaves a job as well.

I commentated for ITV in the 2019 World Cup and the performances that he delivered as England coach against Australia in the quarter-finals and certainly New Zealand in the semi-finals were unbelievable. The game in Yokohama, in terms of the performance and the result given the occasion, still ranks as probably the greatest England performance I’ve ever seen. So therefore, tactically, technically, you know that he clearly has what it takes to be a phenomenal coach. I think the biggest issue is that being a manager of any team now is more about how you deal with people rather than the process, and when you’re hiring and firing people, you need to do it in a certain way, maybe. That’s the thing you could do with more help with.