Australian tour shows Sexton is the real leader of this squad
Australian tour proves Sexton is the real leader of this group
HE NEVER wore the armband on to the field, but one thing is clear as the Irish team disperse throughout the globe in search of a break: Johnny Sexton is the man driving this Irish team.
When their bus belatedly landed at the Sydney Football Ground on Saturday, it was the out-half who purposefully marched his team across the pitch and restored order when even his coach looked ruff led by the disruption.
At the end of a long season, Ireland lost skipper Rory Best on the eve of the tour and Sexton was appointed co-captain alongside Peter O’Mahony. In the event, it was the Munster f lanker who led the team and performed superbly over the series.
When, for the third time, he came crashing down from the force of Israel Folau’s aerial challenge, O’Mahony’s night was done.
Even as the medical staff tended to the prone player, Sexton had taken over, saying to referee Pascal Gauzere: “I’m the captain now. I’m sure you hate me, but you have to talk to me”.
Thereafter, the 32-year-old was a constant presence on the ref’s mic and while he has been criticised for his demeanour with officials in the past, he maintained good relations with the French official to the end.
MOMENTS
As full-time approached, there were moments when it looked like the toll of the season’s effort were finally too much for the Leinster man but he kept probing and coming back for more.
He missed a tackle, then threw a tired-looking pass and yet when the chance came to go on the front foot he kept coming.
When the opportunity knocked to give his side insurance on the scoreboard, he nailed the penalty despite receiving treatment after taking a huge hit from Ned Hanigan and carrying hard at David Pocock in the seconds before lining up the tough kick.
Although he is a man who speaks often of metrics, Schmidt places a lot of faith in intangible qualities like leadership and experience and he was happy with how the leadership group went on this tour.
Yet judging by his high praise of the absent skipper, it is far too early to write 35-year-old Best off.
“Rory is a pretty quiet leader anyway,” he said before Saturday’s game.
“He would definitely utilise Pete and Johnny a lot, so that triumvirate have led us through the last couple of years, and prior to that, Paul O’Connell would use Rory and Johnny and Pete and, in my first year, Brian O’Driscoll definitely to lead the team as well.”
Ireland’s young guns have hogged the limelight, but the leadership corps is in fine fettle with Sexton driving standards whether he has the title of captain or not. EVEN Joe Schmidt admitted that he is “intimidated” by following 2017/18.
Coming on the back of a November clean sweep and a third Grand Slam, this series win in Australia rubber-stamped Ireland’s status as World Cup contenders.
Off-field controversy means nobody could reflect on this as a ‘perfect’ season for Irish rugby, but while the IRFU have work to do on the game’s reputation, the performance side of the house are delivering in spades.
Fifteen months out from the big kick-off in Japan, this June was a crucial month for assessing the runners and riders for the Webb Ellis trophy and while Ireland stood tall there is reason to suspect that they are not the only ones getting their houses in order as the four-year cycle pivots towards its end-game.
Nine matches remain for Schmidt between now and the first warm-up game and while a busy November will necessitate squad rotation, there is a sense that he is close to handing out all the new caps he is going to before the tournament.
NOTABLE
After Saturday’s win, there was a name-check for Ulster’s utility back Will Addisson who trained with the squad in Melbourne and he may yet enter the equation, but after making James Ryan, Dan Leavy, Andrew Porter, Jacob Stockdale and Jordan Larmour key parts of his match-day 23, it is time now to build experience and grow the team’s belief even further.
In time and without the shadow of a World Cup, the magnitude of this season will be fully appreciated but even the way Schmidt picked his teams for this successful jaunt Down Under showed just how much everything is being framed through the prism of Japan.
The experience of being a long way from home for a substantial period of time while playing high-class opposition will stand to the team, as will the latest taste of that winning feeling they are becoming so accustomed to.
They are not bullet-proof by any
means, but this Irish team are fiendishly difficult to beat, yet they also have a capacity to make their wins less comfortable than they should be.
Even when they struggled in Brisbane they had enough chances to win the game, but they should never have been defending a one-score lead at the death in Melbourne and might have gotten further ahead in Sydney with a tad more composure and some help from the referee.
The grand finale of a superb series was a tough game to digest given the influence of the officials and the seesaw nature of the play and a tiring Ireland side showed huge character to grind it out in the end.
Their fitness has been supreme all season and their ability to manage players and avoid injury is the envy of their rivals.
Conor Murray, Johnny Sexton, Robbie Henshaw, Jack McGrath, Tadhg Furlong, Peter O’Mahony and CJ Stander were all on last summer’s Lions tour, but a year later they were starting and
winning a final Test at the end of a long, hard season.
They can happily bask in the glory of it all for the next few weeks – the Leinster contingent may never have a better summer – but when they gather in a Carton House room in August, Schmidt will challenge them to take another step up.
Whether they can do it or not will determine whether the World Cup quarter-final glass ceiling can be broken. If it is, then anything is possible.
What this series showed was that even at the end of such a superb series, Ireland cannot expect to beat members of the Rugby Championship away from Dublin without an immense struggle.
England will bounce back, France are on the up and South Africa are showing signs of life. Argentina and Scotland are enigmatic, but Wales are building again. New Zealand remain a class apart, while even the United States and Japan made some noise in the past month.
After such success it is easy to wonder
VALUABLE
Despite not coming on in Sydney, Ross Byrne will have gained valuable experience in training while there is strong talk of an as-yet unnamed Irish-qualified No 10 arriving in Ulster to bolster the options. Tyler Bleyendaal is another who could come back into the frame if he can get a run of games.
Still, Sexton is so, so important to the team and if anything happened to him in Japan it would be disastrous.
At least Carbery got some much-needed experience on tour, whereas Kieran Marmion and John Cooney were limited to brief cameos off the bench as Murray continued his run of outstanding performances.
With 15 months remaining, Ireland are in arguably their strongest position and, while there are a number of risks, they are primed for a serious assault on the World Cup.
Before they focus on that, they must reflect and enjoy the fruits of a most successful season.
It won’t be forgotten.