Blown away.

Ireland boss Joe Schmidt says he has been “blown away” by the coaching offers he’s received in recent months but does not plan on returning to rugby until “at least June or July of next year.”

The New Zealander’s time with Ireland ended over the weekend with yet another Rugby World Cup quarter-final exit but his time in charge overall will be seen as a massive success.

A return to coaching looks likely for a man who “can honestly say, in six-and-a-half years” has not “taken one full day off”, but for now Schmidt will be taking a much-needed break from the game he loves.

“I know I’m not going to do it [coaching] in the near future,” Schmidt said yesterday

“I’ve been blown away by some of the approaches and incredibly humbled by them. I made a commitment that I’m going to absolutely stick to, through to at least June or July of next year.”

Schmidt said he has received a number of messages from ex-players over the last 48 hours and says Ireland’s incredible first-half display against England in Twickenham last year was as “as good as we got.”

“Some of the high points are probably some of the messages I’ve received in the last 48 hours just from ex-players, or people who’ve said there was a real impact during the six-and-a-half years,” he added. 

I know the trophies are the visible things, the wins are the visible things. But, you want to try to help people get better, not just players improve. I think that I worked as hard as I could to do that.

“It doesn’t always work out in those two 40-minute periods, those two incredibly brutal, but incredibly enjoyable periods where we’ve had those trophies fall our way. And to end as we did is really disappointing.  

“Obviously, talking about that Grand Slam [2018] is special. That first-half in Twickenham, that was as good as we got, probably.