Former Ireland lock Dan Tuohy has said that he did not react well to Joe Schmidt's management style, in a wide-ranging discussion on his career.
Tuohy took particular aim at Schmidt's man management, saying that he did not react well to the Kiwis lack of 'warmth'.
“He [Schmidt] is a pretty scary character… I didn’t react well to being belittled or feeling scared. It wasn’t a good thing for me. I didn’t enjoy that. I know a lot of other players didn’t as well," Tuohy told the Telf Rugby Podcast.
“Some people thrive on that. But he wasn’t a warm character. He wasn’t making you scared or making an edgy environment on the training pitch, but afterwards, he’d be quite personable, he’d be interested in you. He was like that non-stop.”
Tuohy spoke about Ulster's Chris Henry as an example of how Schmidt's style could leave players bent out of shape.
“I’d use Chris Henry as an example. A lot of time that was in shape but he didn’t look in shape. He was fit as anything, but he looked like a bag of s**t. Chris wasn't sure if he could have ketchup with food. There was always an element of hiding things or having a dessert and wondering if Joe was watching you.
“One thing I will say is that he prepared his teams incredibly well. I’m sat here and I haven’t achieved 5% of what Joe has achieved. He prepared his teams to the nth degree incredibly well but I do believe he did stifle some creativity.”
Joe Schmidt's legacy
Tuohy believes that the current Ireland side are suffering as a result of coming round to a new way of management under Andy Farrell.
“I remember at one meeting he said ‘You do not offload. You haven’t got the skills to offload. And this is not me. This is the whole squad. You can’t offload, unless it’s 100%, don’t bother doing it. Just get the ball back and we’ll keep the ball.
“So guys were just petrified to offload the ball. It just stifled creativity.
“It’s such a weird thing for me, as I lived and died by getting that email for Ireland selection, but when I got it, and I’d almost go ‘I’ve got to go down again.’ I’d know for eight weeks he was going to torture me about something.
“Before long he’d be on my back and I’d just be beaten down. I think he wanted to make me stronger, but in actual fact I needed a bit of space. I didn’t work well with that, but everyone’s different. Brian McLaughlin or Mark Anscombe, would put an arm around my shoulder, and they’d be like ‘I believe in you mate. You can do this’. I’d feel like I was 10 feet tall.
“I think Joe wanted to see me come out and be fighting and he was telling me all these different things.
“I remember a World Cup warm-up match in 2015 and I was absolutely dreadful against Scotland, because I was trying to do things that other locks did, but I thought that he wanted me to do.
"It was a shambles for me.”
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