Inside: Ireland out-half not ready to sail off into the sunset
Dearth of top-level out-half candidates complicates Ireland succession planning
IRISH rugby may still be muddling through with its plans to deal with life after Jonathan Sexton’s retirement. But it seems clear that the player himself is perfectly adept at making his own plans for life after Irish rugby. On a day when Munster Rugby dithered, with understandable caution, on the possibility of Joey Carbery making a return to the competitive fray, the ageless warrior Sexton confidently declared his fitness for his latest battle after missing his last international with concussion.
There is no end to the 35-year-old’s indefatigable quest to extract every ounce of competitiveness from his spirit in an effort to prolong his career.
And no beginning to the IRFU’s indecision in ensuring that they are best-placed to pick up the pieces when the day dawns, as it inevitably must, when Sexton’s body refuses to obey the demands of his mind.
Until that day, Sexton remains the superior option at out-half; a factual declaration which is not necessarily mutually exclusive from an opinion which suggests that he should not always be deemed an automatic starter.
Choice
And yet, because Ireland are near the bottom of the Six Nations table, they appear to have little choice but to play him this weekend, if not alone for the immense value he offers, but also to reject the unknown consequences of deploying a myriad of less satisfactory options.
Andy Farrell need only pay heed to history’s recent lesson to warn him that Rome is the last place one decides to pursue over-vaulting ambition.
Amongst its many ruins lie those of an Irish coach; in 2013, Declan Kidney’s campaign of fatal hesitation in ending Ronan O’Gara’s international career would ultimately hasten his own.
O’Gara then, as Sexton is now, was in his 36th year and raging defiantly against the dying of the light; Sexton was injured when Kidney opted for Paddy Jackson, then much too young and inexperienced to acquire the wisdom to handle the pressures.
O’Gara, ironically, was so old and experienced that he discarded much of the acquired wisdom that had enabled him to handle the pressures, and he wobbled alarmingly in a strangely poignant and dismal ending to his days in green.
Sexton doesn’t see such a scenario in his future; neither, for their part, do his bosses, David Nucifora, who writes the cheques, and Farrell, who hands him the captaincy of his country. But it seems that only one of them is assured enough in himself to know how the story ends.
Sexton spoke yesterday of how it may do so, keenly aware that a month after Tom Brady’s latest escapades, his own longevity has always been a talking point, wryly blaming erstwhile team-mate Isa Nacewa for claiming he could play until he’s 40.
And then again, in another breath, he spoke of the present and the future as an ever-evolving thing, which it is; he may not be entirely in control of his circumstances but it doesn’t exactly look as if those running Irish rugby are quite as on top of things as they should be.
And so, with neither Sexton nor those in charge deeming the successors worthy of supplanting him quite yet, his reluctance to bow to the dignified exit demanded by so many observers seems understandable.
Carbery’s absence remains the prime complication; one suspects that Munster are not entirely at liberty to pitch him into the fray should they feel like it this weekend.
The IRFU are in control of that decision in the very same week that they finally place a one-year contract before their once-prized asset, Sexton.
As he mused yesterday about his role in this World Cup cycle, hinting he may not be there when it ends in two years’ time, we pressed him for a reason as to why he was amplifying such thoughts now.
“What am I going to say?” he responded. “That I’m guaranteed to be at the next World Cup at my age?”
We conceded the point but persisted that his train of thought seemed a tad unusual in match week.
“It was just a throwaway comment in terms of talking about World Cup cycles and the journey that this coaching group are on with this group of players. All I said was that this World Cup cycle would stand to us in terms of development.
“And obviously I don’t have a threeyear contract, it’s season by season so it was nothing really.”
All of which served to perhaps con
textualise earlier TV comments about life in retirement, as if he were planning a swansong in two days’ time, as opposed to two years’.
It demonstrates his enduring impact and, again, the sense that whatever about Sexton not knowing what life will be like after Irish rugby, Irish rugby knows so little about what life will be like after Sexton.
Given his difficulty in finishing matches he starts, a brave coach might opt to start someone else instead and then bring on his trump card to close the deal. Then again, the jury seems to be still deciding whether Farrell, purportedly drummed out of the England set-up for his achingly conservative ideals, retains any sense of such boldness in his imagination.
Hence, Sexton retains his eminence, for now. Or at least until a valid – and fit enough – successor is unfurled.
Felipe Contepomi told us much of Sexton’s work involves him bringing through the next generation – indeed the player himself earlier joked that a surfeit of 10s in Leinster might have prompted the delay in acquiring a new contract.
“Johnny won’t play forever, as much as we would like him to,” said Contepomi.
“Leinster has to keep developing players and I think we are lucky enough we have some good young No 10s coming behind.
“Probably Johnny has been a lot of that inspiration for No 10s in this region to get to a level that we have at the moment.
“Obviously we plan and see the bigger picture and that’s part of our work with the academy, who is coming through and so on, scouting and everything.
“But we also have to manage the day-to-day work and it’s about giving some time to those players and preparing all the players for Leinster to succeed.”
Unlike their national team, succession planning seems to be working just fine for them.
Sexton’s task, whatever colour jersey he wears, will be to delay that day of reckoning for as long as possible.
‘Johnny has been a lot of that inspiration for No 10s in this region to get to a level’