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In the autumn of 2010, a little-known New Zealander called Joe Schmidt took over as head coach at Leinster. He previously never been in charge of a professional team. After Leinster lost three of their initial four games, a prominent Irish rugby pundit speculated that Schmidt acquired ‘dropped the dressing area’.

Nine years in, Joe Schmidt has stepped straight down as Ireland coach having achieved success on a scale never before observed in Irish rugby. Two Heineken Mugs in three seasons with about Normal Joe Leinster. Three Six Nations championships in six months with Ireland, including the Grand Slam in 2018. And a bunch of firsts: the 1st Irish victory in South Africa; the first Irish beat of the All Blacks, and then another; and Ireland’s first #1 1 world rating.

Along the way, Schmidt became a byword for precision and focus in coaching, remarkable attention to detail and the best of standards. But who is Joe Schmidt? In Common Joe, Schmidt tells the storyplot of his existence and influences: the encounters and management concepts that produced him the trainer, and the man, that he’s today. And his diaries from the 2018 Grand Slam and the 2019 Rugby Globe Cup give a brilliantly close insight in to the strains and joys of training a national team in victory and defeat.

From the small towns in New Zealand’s North Island where he played barefoot rugby and jostled round the dinner table with seven siblings, to working out grounds and video rooms where he consistently kept his teams a step prior to the opposition, Ordinary Joe reveals an ordinary man that has helped his teams to attain extraordinary things.