Sexton: Shock defeat may be a ‘blessing in disguise’
Johnny Sexton has branded Ireland’s stunning defeat by Japan a “blessing in disguise” because it happened in the World Cup’s pool stages. Stand-off Sexton has declared himself fit after a thigh issue to face Russia in Kobe on Thursday when Ireland aim to set their Pool A campaign back on track.
Chris Farrell has been ruled out of facing the Russians due to concussion, while Robbie Henshaw remains a long-shot to feature as he continues to battle a hamstring problem.
Ireland suffered one of the all-time great World Cup shocks in Saturday’s 19-12 defeat by hosts Japan in Shizuoka, but Sexton insisted Joe Schmidt’s men must be thankful their hefty defeat did not occur in the knockout stages. Sexton was at pains to explain how Ireland swept through the pool stages in 2011 and 2015 only to be dumped out both times in the quarter-finals – by Wales in New Zealand eight years ago and by Argentina four years back.
“The only blessing in disguise is that, in the last two World Cups I’ve been involved in, we’ve cruised through the group, but we’ve had everything go our way in the pool stages,” said Sexton. “And then we’ve had the day we had yesterday in the quarter-final. And we’d be going home today.
“So the great thing now is that we’ve got the rest of the pool to get things together. We know to a certain extent things are in our hands if we can win the last two games and score a number of tries that we can definitely qualify for the quarterfinals. First or second place is out of our control, so we won’t worry about that.
“But it’s up to us now to put in two big performances and get ourselves in to a quarter-final. And we know that, if we can get there, we’ve got a chance.”