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Schmidt dismisses Hansen's Ireland World Cup favourites claim as 'banter'


Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt and New Zealand's Steve Hansen. Photo / Getty Images
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Joe Schmidt dismissed Steve Hansen’s claim that Ireland are World Cup favourites following their historic victory over New Zealand as “a little bit of banter”.

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All Blacks head coach Hansen this week declared that the winner of Saturday’s showdown at the Aviva Stadium would be the number one team in the world.

New Zealand remain at the top of the rankings despite suffering a 16-9 defeat, Jacob Stockdale scoring a superb only try of pulsating Test in Dublin.

Yet Hansen stated after the world champions’ first defeat on Irish soil: “As I said earlier in the week this was number one versus number two in the world.

Continue reading below…
Watch: Steve Hansen hails Ireland after All Blacks lose 16-9 in Dublin.

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“So as of now they are the number one team in the world.

“So if you want to make them World Cup favourites, go ahead. I guess they are favourites.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqTDtXJlRuh

Ireland head coach Schmidt said the rankings speak for themselves.

“I think he probably enjoyed a little bit of banter,” said the New Zealander.

“I’ve huge respect for Steve, Fozzy [Ian Foster] and Scott MacLeod, their coaching staff.

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“So for us to be favourites when they have been the world number one team for nine years, and continue to be the world number one team…

“We were at home, and they were coming off a long series of games where they have travelled around the world a number of times. I thought the crowd were phenomenal tonight. And that’s a lot of things stacked in our favour.

“So we’ll take tonight, and leave 11 months’ time for 11 months’ time.”

Watch: Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt on World Cup favourites tag

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Phantom 47 minutes ago
Nations Championship: 'The data shows the north has finally caught up with the south'

Fact: the gap between the North and the South has narrowed considerably - that I get. However, determining that only selecting only Home grown players or playing in the home country is is the optimal strategy is a bit of a toss up and highly reliant on the economies of the home union. I do understand that England and to a lesser degree Ireland selects home based only. The top 14 is a massive threat to their domestic product. France would probably not be affected (the money is at home). Fiji, Argentina, Samoa, Italy and you could even argue Scotland have only benefitted from this. Their players either go overseas to learn at higher levels (Fiji, Samoa, Argentina) or players coming into their leagues to strengthen the home product and their National teams (Scotland, Italy, Japan).

South Africa used to limit its selection to the home based players, but the reality of a weak currency vs what players could earn oversees meant that you lost access to your best players at some stage of their careers, with very few exceptions. Kolbe left SA as he was considered too small for International Rugby (yes coaches/selectors view), but ironically in France he forced selectors to notice his endeavors and select him. He is only reaching 50 caps now despite being north of 30 - granted rotation and the odd injury also played a role, but for the most part it is having debuted or becoming a regular so late.



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