Jonathan Sexton has his mind on getting Leinster back on track but the prospect of a Lions tour fills him with excitement, writes GERRY THORNLEY
W HEN IGNACIO Mieres’s long-range penalty drifted wide of the posts at the RDS last week, Ian Madigan caught the ball and wound up to hoof it into the cheering blue hordes, whereupon a senior team-mate nearby implored him not to do so. Madigan instead tapped it over the end-goal line. After beating Exeter 12-9 at home Jonny Sexton, man of exacting standards, was not of a mind to swing from the chandeliers.
Initially, Sexton thought Mieres hadn’t a hope of landing the kick into the wind, but as he lined it up the flags died down, and Sexton thought “this isn’t our day”. Even then though, the best Sexton could feel about it all was relief.
If Munster was a step forward, Exeter was a step back. “That’s the way we look at it. Even we were a bit shocked,” admits Sexton. “I don’t think we under-estimated Exeter. When we looked at the performance, defensively we were excellent. We didn’t concede a try for the first game this season, so there’s one positive. But we weren’t as ruthless as we normally are when we got into their 22. We forced too many passes, and that got them into the game.”
Exeter were, as anticipated, a good team, the emphasis being on team, and one Sexton reckons will take scalps in this pool, while he concedes that sometimes even Leinster have to win ugly.
“We’re still not happy with the performance and we’ve always been performance driven with Joe [Schmidt]. Even when we win big games it’s very much what we could have done better, where we didn’t go well and it’s a good way to be because if you look after the performance, a lot of time the result goes hand in hand.”
The relative lack of cohesion thus far will be addressed, he reckons, and confidence won’t be an issue in Llanelli today.
“We know what we did wrong. That’s the key. We’ve got a good coach. He tells us exactly where we went wrong, and when you know that, you know what to fix. We know it’s going to be bloody tough against these lads [Scarlets]. They came out on fire against Clermont and they were well in the game until they got a player sent off. It’s going to be as tough a game as it was last week, but hopefully we can look after our performance.”
The coach is performance driven, and gives his players licence to play, albeit with those infamous Monday video reviews. The players dare to slag their coach about them now, though like his Leinster colleagues, Sexton concedes that Schmidt even gets inside his head during games.
“We’d be playing and I’d think ‘that’s going into the video session on Monday’, but the good things go in as well. So if you’re in a game and you throw a pass you know that’s going to be shown too. It’s both. But he has a great knack – if the ball is at the top end of the pitch, he’ll find a camera angle and if you’re the guy that is furthest from the ball, he’ll find you. There’s no hiding place.”
By the nature of his position, Sexton would approach Schmidt more than most but, admits he’d need to have his points well researched. “I don’t really argue with him, no. There’s no arguing with him. He’s the boss.”
Sexton has a bit of a “rep” for being, how shall we put this, a little argumentative, notably with team-mates. As usual when you meet such a good-humoured, intelligent lad, you wonder how this could be so. At Riverview, he holds the door open for anybody within walking distance, politely orders his club sandwich, and nibbles on it while letting it go cold. But on the pitch or at training, he’s different.
“Well, I probably do argue, but it’s my job. I have to know what Joe wants most of all. I’m the guy on the pitch who decides which move we pull out at which time. Obviously messages come on but I have to try to organise, and sometimes that ends in arguments. I don’t like it. I end up going home thinking ‘I had an argument with him’ and I regret it. And I lose sleep over it. But it’s work and I don’t really argue with people away from rugby; I would be quite different away from rugby.
“There’s a bit of a switch that goes off,” he admits with a wry chuckle. “Even in training, I lose it a bit. It’s something I’m trying to control a bit, to be honest with you. I do agree that I probably have to temper it a little bit in terms of the way I do it. I’ve had some discussions with other players about how I go about that. Not everyone is perfect and sometimes I get my point across in the wrong way at times, but I think I’m getting better at it, with age.”
That brings another wry smile. It’s hard to credit he’s 27 now. “But I’m 27 for the rest of the season,” he notes. He is still four games shy of his century for Leinster and today will still “only” be his 27th Heineken Cup start; not bad for a lad with three winners’ medals.
He also has 33 Ireland caps, and there’s a fair body of work behind him, and he is not especially high mileage. But for as long as he can remember, he’s always been fairly intense about playing sport.
“When I played a lot of tennis and golf as a kid I’d no-one to give out to except myself, and boy did I do it. There were a few tennis racquets smashed and a few golf clubs broken. I used to get into trouble with my parents, but I don’t know why I was so competitive.”
His gene pool is a combination of sporty bloodlines, be it the Nestors on one side (his grandfather John senior played golf for Ireland, uncle Mark played for Bective) or the Sexton clan from Kerry (his father Jerry also played for Bective while his uncle Willie played flanker for Garryowen, Munster and Ireland). A potent Leinster/Munster mix.
“A bad combination, because there’s a temper on both sides I think,” he says, laughing. The family home virtually backed onto Rathgar tennis club and a park for football games (his dad would call him for dinner by whistling), while two or three weeks of every summer “from the age of zero to 20” were spent in Ballybunion. He still plays tennis on holidays and golf – the Ireland squad’s base in Carton House affording plenty of opportunity, not least in the build-up to last year’s World Cup. He still returns to Ballybunion or Listowel every second or third weekend during summer and pre-season, not always to play golf.
As well as his uncles, his gran, Brenda still runs a kids’ clothes shop in Listowel. “She loves it and it keeps her going. She denies she’s in her early 80s; says she still in her 70s. She flies around the place.”
Although a star of the schools game, nothing came particularly easy for Sexton, which may also contribute to his driven nature, and why he wants to make absolutely every game count. Sexton was 22 by the time he was given a real run of games in Leinster’s Magners League-winning campaign of 2007-08.
Even in 2008-09, he had to re-start his campaign via St Mary’s (without whom he says he “definitely would not” be playing for Leinster today) while Declan Kidney picked him on the Ireland A team. Come the Heineken Cup semi-final at Croke Park he was ready to seize the moment when Felipe Contepomi was injured.
“Am I little bit jealous that a lot of guys got a head start on me? I am. But I’m also pleased that I got to play AIL and experienced that side of rugby. I know how lucky I am now to be a professional. I remember when Pádraig Harrington came in to speak to the Irish team a few years ago, and he said: ‘I think the guys that have to work to get there appreciate it more, and then work harder to stay there because they know the other side of the coin.’ I feel like I’m a bit like that. I had to work to get to where I am but it was a great journey to get there. At the time I was probably giving out stink and telling everyone I should have been playing, but I probably wouldn’t change much to be honest.”
Like other Leinster players who have broken into the Irish team since 2009, the Leinster days have been more rewarding than the Irish ones. But he thinks it is altogether too glib to say he is not the same player in green that he is in blue. “I’ve had some great days in the green jersey, unbelievable days,” he stresses, also pointing out to three successive league defeats with Leinster.
He scored 16 points in a winning debut against Fiji at the RDS, and all 15 points a week later in the win over the World champions, South Africa, at Croke Park. There was a starring role in the win away to England, and landing a penalty when knowing he was being called ashore against Scotland “is a memory that will live forever. I got a great reception coming off – obviously Rog got a great reception as well. But they’re moments that live with you through bad times.”
People say he hasn’t played as well for Ireland. Sexton disagrees. He cites the 24-8 win over a Grand Slam-seeking England in the Aviva last year. “As good as I’ve played,” he says. “I’ve had some great days, I just haven’t had the consistency, that’s the key. And we haven’t had the results.
“I have been a bit down about Ireland, in terms of, as a 10, you can only control so much. You can control yourself and you try and control the team. Things have been going well with Leinster for years and that makes my job easier. It’s been different with Ireland,” he says, citing how the ’09 Slam winners were comprised mostly of players with 50-plus caps. But he believes the transition is now complete and they have the players to win silverware.
There’s another jersey in the offing, aside from the blue one and the green one.
You mention the word Lions and you ask what he thinks. “I think: ‘I’m thinking too much about it. I’ve got to just chill out.’ I’ve never seen hype like it. I asked Brian the other day: ‘was it like this four years ago and eight years ago?’ And he said he’s never seen anything like it. I can’t watch anything without something coming up.”
And if he pays any heed it will have him thinking he has to play perfectly every time he steps on the pitch.
Sexton became engaged during the summer to long-time girlfriend Laura Priestley, a schoolteacher who he has been going out with since his school days. “I texted my family and all I got back was ‘about time’, ‘about time’. It probably was about time.”
No date has been finalised, but hopefully after a certain rugby odyssey to Oz. So, now 27, looking to be a little less argumentative with his team-mates, and hopefully too heading into the peak years.
“Yeah. Hopefully. Why not? Hopefully more great days in blue and hopefully great days in green as well.”
And let red take care of itself from there.
Jonathan Sexton is an ambassador for Volkswagen Ireland.
Sexton: facts
Date Of Birth: JulY 11th, 1985.
Birthplace: Dublin.
Height: 1.88 m (6' 2")
Weight: 92 kg (14st 6 lb)
Club: St Mary's College.
Representative honours: Ireland (32 caps), Ireland A; Leinster A; Ireland Under-21; Leinster Under-21; Ireland Schools; Leinster Schools.
Leinster facts: 96 caps. (844 pts).
Heineken Cup: Pl 26 (+ 5 Reps). Won 21, Drawn 2, Lost 3. Pts 349 (7 tries, 49 cons, 3DGs, 69 pens).
