SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK
Sexton and Farrell are determined to treat adversity as opportunity with Ireland meeting every challenge head on
WINTER was refusing to let go, as an east wind cut across the National Sports Campus in Dublin yesterday. Rain was turning to sleet, ahead of a predicted heavy night-fall, and the usual joggers and walkers taking advantage of the expansive setting were not to be seen.
It was a day you wouldn’t put a dog out.
A squad looking to make it four wins out of four in this year’s Six Nations is a different matter.
They follow different rules, and with the forecast for Murrayfield on Sunday borrowing plenty from the conditions in Ireland yesterday, it made a brutal sort of sense for the Irish players to complete their last significant training session of the week in wretched weather.
When Johnny Sexton appeared for media duties a short time later, listenthan
“You try to train hard and make sure you are prepared”
ers had to strain to hear him as rain clattered off the roof.
The veteran is fit following the groin injury he suffered when Uini Atonio fell in a heap on him in Dublin a month ago, and he was perhaps one of the few people in the country who saw the good in going outdoors yesterday.
It is preparation for Scotland, and the challenge of winning in a different way. The benign conditions of the first three rounds will be replaced by a tougher environment.
And that fits with the message Farrell has relentlessly pushed this spring: the tougher the better. Adversity is opportunity is their mantra, the kind of sentiment easily scrawled on a corporate whiteboard, but one that this group are making come true.
It is another significant aspect of Farrell’s increasingly impressive leadership, and Sexton’s admiration for the head coach was clear.
‘I’ve always had a great relationship with Andy,’ he said, ‘on the Lions tours, then obviously coming on board with Ireland.
‘It was a fantastic appointment by Joe [Schmidt] to get him when he left England. You say it’s the first time he’s been in this situation as a head coach, but he’s been in it as an assistant coach, he’s been in it probably 100 times as a player because he had such success with Wigan, then into the World Cup with England.
‘That’s probably more valuable having it as a coach because he’s been on both sides and he knows exactly what it takes.
‘He has gone from strength to strength in this role. He set out at the start as a three- or four-year project and it’s started to come good, so he has to take all the kudos from it. This has been his vision and he’s delivering on it.’
Farrell’s authenticity in doing that chimes with Sexton, as a player whose forthrightness is well established. ‘The best thing about him is he’s always been himself. Sometimes when you have assistant coaches and they go into the head coach’s role, they lose what made them such a great assistant coach. ‘He has been the exact same. He’s still so popular with the players and staff. He’s the life and soul of the party so it’s great in that regard, that he hasn’t distanced himself.’
Injury has stalked Sexton through much of his career, particularly its later years. If that is an obvious cause of frustration, his ability to return and quickly find the pitch required of a leading Test out-half is one of the most significant features of his game.
He will be trusted to do so again on Sunday, and so complete is the belief in him, within and without the group, that there has been virtually no discussion of resting him or handling him carefully for what is a huge challenge.
‘You’d rather be playing, for sure,’ he said. ‘I think what you learn is, you have to prepare well, you have to train well, you have to try and put yourself into game situations to taking training seriously, even your kicking practice and stuff like that, making sure you’ve got a real focus to it.
‘I suppose the thing that you don’t get to replicate is the intensity but you try and train hard and make sure you’re as well prepared.
‘But nothing ever compares to Test match rugby. But look, I’ll be ready come Sunday. Like you said, I’ve had longer breaks.
‘Luckily I’ve had a couple of games under my belt since the face injury (sustained against Connacht for Leinster at the start
of the year), so yeah, it’s not ideal, but it is what it is.’
The contrast between the starting No10s has been an inevitable focus ahead of this match, but it’s no less intriguing for that.
Finn Russell has been tagged as mercurial for much of his career, an undoubted but unpredictable talent. The volatility of his relationship with Gregor Townsend sharpened the impression of a talented but unreliable playmaker.
He has, though, been outstanding for the Scots in the first three rounds of this year’s competition. Sexton acknowledged as much, and mentioned, too, that Russell was a Lions tourist in 2021, a trip that Sexton was left off and that omission is one that he has admitted hurt him badly.
‘As a player he’s been great,’ he said of Russell. ‘Obviously he got picked for the Lions and then had a very good campaign this year.
‘It’s amazing that he’s come back in at the standard he has when he got left out in November, which is testament to his character. To be left out and then be brought back and influence things so quickly is a sign that he’s on top of his form.
‘And how we stop him, he’s got a full bag of tricks so we have to do it as a team. We need to be as connected as we’ve ever been. We need to know when to go, know when to hold off, know when to pressurise him and contain him.’
Russell will have taken up a considerable amount of time in Irish planning for this Test. But then no figure will have dominated Scottish analysis more than Sexton.
His Test career is drawing to a close, but the challenges remain great — much like the rewards.