Johnny Sexton is fit. The concern over the weekend in Montpellier, when Leinster coach Leo Cullen withdrew him and Seán O'Brien at half-time while Isa Nacewa place kicked (flawlessly) in the 22-16 defeat, was to ensure Sexton's high hamstring strain did not graduate into an injury that could derail his entire season.
O'Brien, Paul O'Connell and Iain Henderson have all fell victim to serious hamstring tears in recent months. Ireland and Leinster do not need Sexton to fall into that category.
“The week before I hurt my hamstring,” said Sexton, speaking in his capacity as an Aer Lingus ambassador. “It’s very minor but in a place it would be quite risky. Other guys have had trouble with it so I was in a race against time to get fit for Montpellier.
“I had limited training time with the lads so to get fit for the game was a bonus. I knew my time would be restricted and Leo made the call to do it at half-time. I would have liked to have gone on further but I knew it wouldn’t be the full game either.
“The other guys who have had a little strain there before have made it a big problem. If you got a big problem up there you are looking at 16 weeks or more. It’s a case of just making sure that it was 100 per cent, which it was, and then just making sure that it was managed back into it.”
Sexton explained that Nacewa kicked because it would have only put the Fijian international in an awkward position if he had to take over in the second half.
“I knew I wasn’t going to play a full game. I thought it would be 50 or 60 but then when the conditions were as they were, they didn’t want me cooling down and warming back up. I was keen to get back out there but I knew I wasn’t play a full game so there is no point in me kicking for 50 minutes and then saying ‘best of luck Isa’ for the rest of the game.
“As a kicker you obviously want those early kicks. That was it really, it was made around the team. Isa was kicking well. I was kicking in the warm up as well because I was fit to kick but it was just for Isa, for the team and thankfully it was the right decision because he had to nail some important kicks. That one right at the end, if he was taking that as his first kick, it would have been a more tricky kick.”
Sexton will not play for Leinster against Connacht on Saturday at the RDS so it means he will have only played “three and half” matches this season before facing the All Blacks in Chicago on November 5th.
