JOHNNY IS A CLASS APART
Sexton is just another product of a brilliant Irish schools system, insists Ollie Campbell
EVERY day is a school day for Ollie Campbell. The former Ireland and Lions stand-off makes his living as the head of his family clothing firm but his life is welded to rugby and to a school that has an illustrious history with the oval ball.
‘I was there last week,’ says Campbell, now 65, of Belvedere College in the very heart of Dublin. ‘I was asked to make the presentation of the jerseys to the first XV before a Leinster Cup match. It was quite the occasion, as always, with the team members being introduced individually in front of 1,000 pupils.’
This simple statement requires some amplification. The unspoken certainty is that the lads would have been honoured to receive their shirts from such a man.
Old Belvedere Rugby Club, who celebrated their centenary last year, play at Ollie Campbell Park. Campbell was among the greatest of Irish fly-halves despite injury restricting him to 22 caps. He remains, too, a fan and advocate of the schools game.
As Ireland face Scotland in Dublin today, he reflected on one of the major differences between the two countries.
‘Schools rugby is huge in Ireland, simply huge,’ he says. ‘It is the absolute bedrock of our game. It is the rock and foundation stone on which Irish rugby has been built. There are many other avenues now for players to get to the top but the school system is the most fundamental.
‘Leinster have a conveyor belt of talent coming through the schools. These lads are almost ready to play for Leinster within a year of leaving school. Without schools, Irish rugby would not be in the position it is.’
With Joe Schmidt gone as head coach, and in the wake of a disappointing World Cup, Ireland are seeking to reassert themselves. Campbell’s career epitomises the notion that setbacks can be overcome with perseverance.
With a scholar’s allegiance to dates, he recalls: ‘January 16, 1976, against Australia. My debut. I had a 100-per-cent record. Four attempts at goals. Four misses. It was the only time since I started playing rugby with Belvedere Under9s to when I retired that I was dropped. It was a pretty severe punishment. It took me three-and-a-half years to get back in the team.’
He was recalled for the successful tour of Australia when Ireland became the first northern hemisphere national team to win a series in the southern hemisphere.
He went on to make his Five Nations debut against England at Twickenham, four years after making his first start for the team.
‘Having beaten Australia, we were actually favourites for the championship but we came a cropper,’ he says.
However, he was prominent, even irresistible, when Ireland won their first Triple Crown for 33 years in 1982.
‘There is no hiding place,’ he adds of the stark reality of playing at No 10. He knows this applies to the two players who will occupy that berth for the countries today: the peerless and experienced Johnny Sexton for Ireland, and the promising but callow Adam Hastings for Scotland.
He is intrigued by that match-up but content first to reflect on glorious history and the enduring appeal of rugby’s most compelling annual championship.
‘The Five Nations, as it was then, was the jewel in the crown for players of my generation,’ he says.
He was born to watch Ireland and grew up to play for the country.
‘My mum and dad were there to watch Ireland win its first Grand Slam at Ravenhill on March 13, 1948,’ he explains.
‘They did not know each other then and it was my mum’s way of celebrating her 25th birthday. They met subsequently and I was born six years later and weaned on the memories of that team, particularly the immortal Jack Kyle.
‘I was sent to Belvedere College, a Jesuit school, with a very strong rugby culture. It was nature and nurture for me as regards playing rugby.’
His rugby life was packed with incident and anecdote. He first watched the great Mike Gibson in 1964 and ended up playing alongside him. An older Belvedere boy was the legendary Tony O’Reilly, the prodigious try scorer and a businessman who made billions and then lost a fortune.
‘St Patrick’s Day, 1954,’ recalls Campbell (left). ‘Belvedere v Blackrock in the Leinster Schools final. A pass meant for Tony is intercepted and
Blackrock score under the posts to win the match. Tony has always said his mother was due to present the cup and so she bought a new hat.
‘She expected to hand the cup to her son, the Belvedere captain. She was so disappointed she refused to speak to him for six months.’
O’Reilly, more than 50 years on, confided to his fellow Belvedere FP that playing in that final was a greater experience than winning his first cup just a year later.
Back to school. ‘The first time I saw him? Leinster Schools Seniors Cup final. Lansdowne Road. It’s a miserable day, rainy and very windy. The match should not have been played. Johnny came on as a sub. He was 16 years of age and he dropped a goal to win the match. It was such a day that nobody had the right to drop a goal. He did then what he subsequently did in Paris for his country years later. That was my first sight of Johnny Sexton.’
The stand-off has become an indisputable great of the game but his path to the top was not without obstructions.
‘In 2009, I watched him play for St Mary’s, his club, against Old Belvedere in a league match and the reason he was playing in that was because he could not get a game for Leinster,’ says Campbell.
‘Three months later, he comes on as a substitute for Leinster in the semi-final of the Heineken Cup against Munster at Croke Park in front of 85,000 supporters and he nailed a penalty with his first act, a very awkward penalty, too. Leinster went on to win and played Leicester in the final. Johnny played brilliantly, dropped a goal and the rest, as they say, is history.’
Sexton, at 34, is a former world rugby player of the year, winner of three Six Nations titles (one Grand Slam), four Champions Cups with Leinster, and a two-time tourist with the Lions.
‘I think he may well be,’ replies Campbell when asked if Sexton is the greatest Irish stand-off ever. ‘Jack Kyle was truly great. Mike Gibson played his first 20 matches at 10 and he would be right up there. But Johnny — in terms of the success that he has had, the length of his career, playing in
the professional game — could well be the best of them all.’
He pointed out that Sexton can adapt to any strategy, adding: ‘He is right up there among the best to have played the game. His list of achievements is quite extraordinary. He is a real winner and he has driven the standard of any team he has played on, whether Leinster, Ireland or Lions. He’s a driving force behind the culture of the team.’
Sexton, of course, enjoyed extraordinary success with Schmidt, his coach at Leinster then Ireland.
‘Johnny was Joe’s general on the pitch. There was a symbiosis between them,’ says Campbell. ‘They saw the game in the same way and that factor was hugely responsible for the success they enjoyed. They had the same understanding and feeling for the game. Johnny could hear Joe’s voice in his head as he played.’
Any discussion of Adam Hastings must, inevitably, include a reference to Old Belvedere.
‘I played against Gavin,’ he says of the Scotland stand-off’s illustrious dad. ‘Gavin came over a couple of years ago to an Old Belvedere function and he spoke beautifully. He reminded me that we played against each other in the 80s at Watsonians. I think Watsonians came second.’
This is said with a chuckle but Campbell requests a moment to gather his thoughts on Adam.
‘He’s a beautiful player. Very stylish,’ he says after a pause. ‘I would suggest that he plays his own game but he gives freedom to his instincts and freedom to the naturalness of the game. That would be the only advice I could give him.’
Four coaches who worked for England at the 2015 World Cup are now employed in Ireland: Graham Rowntree, Mike Catt, Stuart Lancaster and head coach Andy Farrell.
This English invasion does not perturb Campbell.
‘He’s his own man, comfortable in his own skin,’ he says of Farrell, who makes his debut as Six Nations head coach today.
‘He is incredibly experienced as a coach and highly respected by every Irish player who has played under him. You don’t gain respect that easily at that level. But it is his first time as a head coach and there is that Rubicon to cross. The buck is stopping with you.
‘He is doing it his way. He made very much the right decision in appointing Johnny as captain and he has changed other things, such as the day the team is announced. There seems to be a relaxed attitude in the camp.
‘Joe was the best coach we ever had. The World Cup came a year too late for us. But now we have to prove there is life after 2019, there is life after the World Cup, there is life after Joe.’
And has he met Farrell? ‘Andy’s son, Gabriel, plays mini rugby at Belvedere, so I see him there regularly,’ he says.
Every day’s a school day, indeed.