Stepping out of the shadow
Crowley can cement his place at 10 after spending last campaign as Sexton’s apprentice
JACK CROWLEY spent the Grand Slam campaign serving Johnny Sexton. Now, his job is to move from servant to master in five easy games – starting in Marseille in five days’ time. For four of the five championship matches in 2023, Crowley attended the Ireland captain during games, bringing him on his kicking tee and getting to watch the veteran up close.
For one game, he got to be understudy – but to Ross Byrne, not Sexton, after the latter was injured for the match against Italy in Rome.
Come the World Cup, though, Crowley established himself as the replacement out-half for the big contests, and by extension pushed himself into contention as Sexton’s replacement.
For a man whose chances of making the World Cup squad were not rated definite for much of last year, his progress within the national set-up mirrored how quickly he improved at Munster, when he was finally given a meaningful run of games.
Getting that chance in the first place was the trick at Thomond Park, with Crowley’s adventurous take on the sport not seeming to fit with the rigorous drilling that passed for gameplans under Johann van Graan.
The arrivals of Graham Rowntree and Mike Prendergast gave Crowley his chance, and the past year has been about rapid progress, from provincial afterthought to national playmaker. It seems certain he will be given the No10 shirt in Marseille on Friday night, and it presents a challenge of an order he has never confronted before.
‘It genuinely was a good way to be able to understand the pace of the game, to see pitch-side what it’s like and to see the opportunities that might have been on,’ he said on Friday of his duties last season assisting Sexton.
Crowley spoke from Portugal where Ireland’s warm-weather camp ahead of Friday night’s blockbusting opener continues.
‘I was able to learn a lot from it, and even being able to soak up that atmosphere is something I hope to take on board.’
The raucous home crowd inside the cavernous Stade Velodrome will only be a part of the challenge. Longer shadows are cast by the man he will be asked to replace.
Sexton has a good call on being Ireland’s greatest out-half. And given his longevity and the consistent excellence Ireland produced during his career, it can also be argued he is a more influential figure than even Brian O’Driscoll in the game’s history here. ‘It’s got to be genuine,’ he said about replacing Sexton. ‘For me, I obviously learned so much from Johnny over the last two years and tried to absorb as much as I could, but from his point of view, he went through the tough patches as well and that’s what made him such a great leader, such a great player.
‘It probably took a bit of time to understand but that’s what I need to do, too. I need to grow to understand myself and my game and how I can impact this group. I don’t think I can just fabricate it. It has to be genuine.
‘So, it’s going out and not thinking about that side of it. The lads will benefit more if I’m able to perform my game, and hopefully that has a knock-on effect for the team.’
Crowley was famously courted by Ronan O’Gara over a switch to La Rochelle when he was struggling to get noticed at Munster. Comparisons with Munster’s peerless No10 are inevitable, and Crowley is clued in enough to understand that, no less than with the Sexton ones, they are inevitable – if obvious.
‘Given the calibre of the two lads and what they’ve done for their provinces and for Ireland, they’ve obviously served massively and achieved massively, of course that comparison is going to be there, and there’s an expectation,’ he nods. ‘But I think that’s what makes Irish rugby so good, that we have that expectation and ambition. I hope that we can fill that.’
This player doesn’t get spooked, and whatever variables may be flashing amber ahead of the game – around the No10 shirt, Ireland’s set-pieces, the impact of Sexton’s departure, Peter O’Mahony’s move to captaincy and his contract uncertainty – Crowley’s temperament isn’t one of them.
His displays for Munster this season have betrayed a relative lack of experience at times – he has played on nine occasions for Ireland, starting three matches and totalling three minutes in the Six Nations so far – but setbacks don’t appear to spook him. Nor does he appear encumbered by the provincial miseries that have been mostly Munster’s lot this season.
‘Those losses, when you let games slip, you go through the game and of course it’s disappointing, because you want to get the result,’ he revealed, the memory of the collapse against Northampton appearing to inform his view.
‘You work hard through the week, fully committing to getting a result at the weekend, and to not get it is disappointing. I know personally that I dive deep into a game and try and see where possibly the game was lost and were there moments where I was involved where I could have done better or had a better impact.’
Sexton would approve of that appetite for improvement and recovery.
Now, he has to match the master in the other areas that made him a legend.
The tough patches made him such a great leader, such a great player