NEW IRISH TITLE HOPE
Ireland No.10 Johnny questions why officials are letting big-hit tactics go
FRUSTRATED Johnny Sexton doesn’t know what else he can do to get protection from referees.
He claims he has done everything to highlight the fact that he is targeted and gets constantly hit by borderline late tackles.
But even his current World Player of the Year status made no difference at Murrayfield when the 33-year-old was clobbered four times in the 23 minutes that he was on the field.
Sexton, who starts for Ireland in Rome today, insists he is not the only out-half who plays on the edge but claims he is the only one who is consistently roughed up.
“Well, it’s been going on for a bit,” Sexton said. “The only thing I’d say is it’s frustrating because there are other out-halves who play flat to the line and it doesn’t happen to them.
“I’m just trying to get my head round it. No one’s at fault, it’s just the way it is – get up and get on with it.
“The only frustration is I don’t think there was another one after I left the pitch in Scotland – or there wasn’t on anyone else – so it must have been a tactic.
“It’s hard for the refs as well because they’re all right on the line so they’ll say they’re committed and you can’t penalise them. But you could sort of say, ‘I don’t want any more of that’.
“That’s life, you just get on with it. It didn’t bother me too much in terms of none of them really hurt me, except for the one where Jacob Stockdale went through for his try. That was where I got a little bit rattled but it’s part of the game, you’ve got to get used to it and I will.”
Sexton believes that all the hits he has shipped in this Six Nations have been “on the borderline” and reckons the worst one actually occurred in the England defeat.
He added: “What can I do? I think I’ve tried every sort of outcome possible.
“I’ve tried to stay down a little bit when I could get straight back up. I’ve tried to get straight back up, I’ve tried to give out to the ref, I’ve tried to say nothing.
“I’ve tried to react, I’ve tried to smack someone in the head which didn’t go too well.
“I just have to get up and get on with it. I felt I was doing that against Scotland. I was gutted to come off because they probably felt they’d won that little battle.
But it wasn’t really that that finished me, it was more I think one of my own players, Peter O’mahony, who stamped on my ankle and I couldn’t really get my foot down to kick. It was sore to kick and I was tightening up so it was probably that combined with getting a couple of shots that came off.
“It was frustrating, I felt like I was getting into the game nicely.
It was a step up from the week before. When you’re coming back from injury, it’s getting that game time back, especially when you’ve been off your feet for as long as I was.
“I was enjoying it. It was just disappointing to have to come off.”
Sexton predicts Ireland aren’t far away from catching fire and putting in the sort of displays that made them world rugby’s team of the year in 2018.
“We took the England defeat harder than the supporters,” he stressed. “We take things harder than any of the people who watch it.
“I know they would’ve been let down and we felt that we let them down and we let ourselves down.
“We didn’t play as we wanted to but we’re not a million miles off. It wasn’t a wake-up call.”