Joe Schmidt plays down Ireland's world number one tag after historic win over New Zealand

Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt played down talks of his side being the best in the world following their 16-9 win over New Zealand at Aviva Stadium last weekend.

Ireland had a fabulous 2018 year where they went on clinch the Grand Slam during the Six Nations 2018 and followed it with a 2-1 series win against Wallabies in Australia.

Ahead of the encounter last Saturday, New Zealand head coach Steve Hansen said the winner of the game will have the right to call themselves "the best in the world" and it was Schmidt's side that outplayed the world champions for the second time in their last three meetings.

During the post-match conference Hansen lavished praise on Ireland and described them as a strong contender for the World Cup 2019 scheduled in Japan.

“As I said earlier in the week this was number one versus number two in the world,” said Hansen.

“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.”

The gap between the rankings between top placed New Zealand and second positioned Ireland have gone down to 1.37 rating points following last weekend's result.

However, Schmidt saw the lighter side of the comments from Hansen and said he has high regards for the All Blacks, who have dominated the game for more than a decade.

“I think he probably enjoyed a little bit of banter.

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

“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.”