If it is to become a fourth Irish title in those six years before Schmidt puts his coaching career on hold, there will need to be a home victory over England in Dublin on the opening weekend in nine days’ time, and while those outside the camp may be focused on potential World Cup success in Japan next September and October, Schmidt is demanding his players keep their focus solely on their immediate objective.

The head coach, speaking at yesterday’s Guinness Six Nations launch in London, did not deny there were some elements of experimentation at play as Ireland gear up for the championship at a four-day training camp at the Quinta do Lago resort in Portugal. England arrived last night on a similar, seven-day exercise 20 minutes down the Algarve coast at Vilamoura.

But if Eddie Jones were tempted to spy on his rivals, as he jokingly suggested yesterday that he may, he would be looking on at subtle tweaks rather than major changes and the bottom line remained that a Six Nations campaign was not the time to tinker.

“Sometimes with selection there are a few surprises that are part of maybe a bigger picture, a long-term plan, but you get pretty short-term focused,” Schmidt said yesterday.

“You play England in 10 days, you don’t think too much about a World Cup because I think the danger is you can damage a World Cup, your confidence, your expectation, your momentum, just because you look too far ahead and don’t give due respect to what is one of the biggest teams in world rugby. You are just opening yourself up for an opportunity for them to take advantage of you.”

Injury, as always, will force a coach’s hand in terms of selection and Schmidt has three uncapped players, all from Connacht, in his squad: scrum-half Caolin Blade, fly-half Jack Carty, and centre Tom Farrell. Seeing them successfully bed in was one of the Ireland boss’s objectives for the campaign when he was asked to outline what would make a successful Six Nations for Ireland.

“One, that we can integrate these new guys. Two, that we can play at the top of our game, and you know, I know people always want something concrete, something that is objective or result-based, and I think, as I said last year, if we can get in the top two, you know you are in the mix.

You know that if you are in the top two, and we have just spoken about how competitive some of those teams are, I think we can keep our confidence that we are still on the right track.

“There are so many variables that you don’t control in the game. To have three out of five (titles)... if we went back six years; A, if you asked me six years ago would I still be in the job right now I would have said:

‘You are joking’, but I’ve been incredibly lucky to be involved in a period that has been really strong for Irish rugby, and to have those three, we’d love to add another one if we can. But I know that there are five other coaches here today that are very, very motivated to do exactly the same thing.”

With the countdown to his departure at the end of the World Cup campaign triggered at the end of last November, Schmidt also faced questions on his future beyond 2019.

Schmidt insisted he intends to take at least a 12-month break, but asked if he would like to coach the Lions in 2021, Schmidt replied: “I wouldn’t be available if asked at the moment. I said to my wife that we’d get these 12 months done and she said: ‘Yeah, look, you’ll last 12 days, potentially, without needing to do something’.

“And I wouldn’t say that I’m looking to do any coaching, so it’s not something that’s at the forefront of my mind.”

Asked whether the All Blacks remained an ambition for the New Zealand-born coach, Schmidt said: “Not really.”

“I don’t want to bore you with the whole history of it, but I’m an incredibly accidental coach. Even when I started coaching, it was when I first started teaching. I’d been playing a bit of basketball and obviously as a point guard I’m not the biggest man but when I first started at Palmerston North Boys’ High I got asked by Dave Sims, the rector, well I didn’t really get asked, I got told, that I needed to be involved in the co-curricular life of the school. And I said: ‘Look, I’d love to coach basketball’ and he said: ‘That’s brilliant, that’s on Friday nights, it won’t affect your rugby coaching on Saturday mornings’.

“At the time I was playing on the wing for Manawatu, the provincial team, and it kind of went from there.

“So I love the game, I’ve played it from the time I was four years old so it’s not that I don’t love the game, it’s just that I think it wasn’t an intended career and I have a few priorities that just kind of reshaped your thinking a little bit.

“At the same time, to be honest, you can’t keep riding your luck. I’ve had an unbelievable time in the game, whether it be with Bay of Plenty in the Ranfurly Shield or even when we finished up with the Blues with that last semi-final, I thought it was a really good step and the Bouclier de Brennus in France and with Leinster, now with Ireland... I think you’ve got to run out of luck at some stage.

“I felt that we did a bit in 2015 in the World Cup so that’s probably a good time to finish on, post the World Cup. I’ve had two shots at getting guys ready for that and then finish up.”