The World’s Best AND A HUGE WORRY
Top honour appears only to have placed a bigger bounty on the already-targetted head of Ireland’s No10, as Sexton says ‘what can I do? I think I’ve tried every sort of outcome possible’
It’s a conundrum that Ireland need to solve before the World Cup.
Johnny Sexton’s great strength is his ability to take the ball to the line and put his teammates through gaps. It worked to devastating effect against Scotland when his inside ball sent Jacob Stockdale scorching upfield for a brilliant try. Not that Sexton saw the fruits of his labour. He was seeing stars on the ground after copping a thunderous hit from Allan Dell. It was the roar of the crowd that gave it away. Ireland’s out-half was still trying to put himself back together on the halfway line when Stockdale scored.
Dell’s tackle was the fourth big collision that Sexton sustained at Murrayfield. Throw in an accidental stamp from Peter O’Mahony on his ankle and he was battered and bruised with just 24 minutes on the match clock. He was called ashore soon after that. That’s the issue for Sexton and Ireland. His ability to play flat is an integral component in Joe Schmidt’s game plan, but it leaves his prized asset vulnerable to big hits from feral flankers.
This is not a new development. Sexton has a bounty on his head these days. That World Player of the Year award can be a heavy burden. When Leinster paid a visit to Thomond Park in late December, the hosts gave Fineen Wycherley a start on the blindside flank. Deputising for Peter O’Mahony and keen to make an impression, the rookie immediately went hunting for Sexton. Once again, Leinster’s No10 played flat and got flattened by Wycherley, leading to ‘that’ scuffle.
Earlier this week, Richie Murphy – Ireland’s skills coach and a man who has worked closely with Sexton for the best part of a decade – said there was no debate about the way he plays. It will be business as usual at Stadio Olimpico today and Sexton has made peace with the rough treatment.
Many feel he is being targeted. The likes of Eddie Jones disagree and think he gets preferential treatment. Sexton will just get on with it.
‘Obviously, I’m aware that it’s happening because I’m on the other end of it but, no, I don’t really see what’s said or being talked about or written about,’ he said.
‘I’ve given my side of it in terms of what I’ve said already. They’re all on the borderline, I probably got a worse one against England than any of the ones against Scotland.
‘Look, it is what it is. 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. So like what can you do? 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 that one, that 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 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 as the first half was going on so it was probably that combined with getting a couple of shots that came off.’
The demons of that opening round defeat by England still continue to haunt the corridors of Carton House. Schmidt referenced that galling loss in great detail on Friday afternoon. The obsessive head coach has probably watched that game a dozen times by now and he felt his squad were not that far off England despite some of the reaction in the aftermath.
Conor O’Shea has his hands full with the Azzurri these days but he sprung to Ireland’s defence this week as well, saying some of the reaction to that England game was ‘nothing short of histrionics and laughable.’
Sexton and his fellow teammates speak often of the ‘bubble’ that exists at their team base. The party line is that they pay little attention to the outside noise, but no one is immune to criticism – especially the level of public alarm in the days fol- lowing that 32-20 reversal in Dublin. ‘We took it harder,’ he explained. ‘We take things harder than any of the people who watch it. I know they take it hard, and they would have 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 millions miles off, you know what I mean?
‘We’re talking about fine margins, like the way things happened last year. And I know you guys probably think were throwing lines out to the media but it’s not.’
Looking back with a clear head on the events of that night, Sexton saw a lot of parallels with Ireland’s win over England at Twickenham last year. Back then, it was Anthony Watson making an early defensive clanger. Stockdale got the bounce of the ball for his try that day. In Dublin, he fumbled the ball that led to Elliot Daly’s try. Everything went Ireland’s way over on England’s patch. It was the opposite at Lansdowne Road this time round.
Sexton certainly refutes the suggestion that Ireland were caught off guard by England’s physicality in the opening exchanges.
‘Look, that’s a big part of their game,’ he said.
‘They were like that in Twicken-
ham last year but we just dealt with it a bit better and we sort of took the chances as opposed to them taking the chances. It was almost like a reversal of the game, so we weren’t surprised.
‘At times we did stand up really well but like I said we had five or six good phases of defence where they didn’t seem to be going anywhere and suddenly we’re underneath our posts talking about what went wrong. Then same again, we had some great goal line defence and a little chip through and we’re under our posts again.
‘Two small little things that we wouldn’t normally do but good play by them and I think they’ve turned a bit of a corner. They were in a position last year where they couldn’t get a result that they wanted and they learned from that and will become better for it. We’ll do the same.’
The game is very much about fine margins. Sexton references Ireland’s victory over Scotland in last year’s Six Nations. The hosts cruised home 28-8 in the secondhalf, but it was touch and go before the break.
‘Look at the Scotland game last year,’ he said.
‘They’re leading 3-0 and playing well when Jacob gets the intercept, then he nips in again on the stroke of half-time and suddenly it’s 14-3. It was a little bit like that against England.
‘We didn’t do too much wrong and we’re under our posts, 7-0 down. Get back to 10-7, don’t do too much wrong and we’re 17-10 down at half-time.
‘They’re the margins we live with. Then we give away another try off first phase which we don’t normally do. Over the last few years, we haven’t done that. So there’s great lessons in there for us and I think that if we do go on and do what we want to do for the rest of this year, we’ll look back on that game and say that was a big turning point for us.’
Last year was dreamland stuff for this Ireland squad with a Grand Slam, a first series win in Australia since 1979 and that triumph over the All Blacks. England certainly brought this squad back down to earth last month. Sexton hammers home the point that the team was not getting carried away, but if there is a lesson there and it results is a positive World Cup campaign, then so be it.
‘It’s not a wake-up call,’ he added.
‘It’s a good learning for us because we’d rather it happened now and learn from it and say right we need to get better at this and take it on into the rest of the Six Nations and then into the summer series and the World Cup. Sometimes you train and prepare like unbelievably well, and against England I thought things were going great in training.
‘Things were going really well and guys were training well and then you don’t perform on the Saturday.
‘There are lots of reasons for that. Joe says it really well, “I think rugby is the most interdependent sport in the world”. If things aren’t right with the guy either side of you and things aren’t clicking it’s hard to perform as an individual, as a team.
‘It only takes a couple of cogs in the wheel to be off and things aren’t quite right.’
This afternoon is another chance to get things back on track.