Retired rugby great Jonathan Sexton leaves Ireland in a better place despite quarterfinal exit
Ireland rugby was Brian O’Driscoll in 2008. By then, he was a test player for nine years, captain for five years, and the British and Irish Lions skipper to boot. He was BOD.
At Leinster, Jonathan Sexton was an intense wisp of a flyhalf, a good club player yet to establish himself.
“One day Johnny had a go at Brian O’Driscoll in training,” teammate Rob Kearney wrote in his book “No Hiding.” “This was something never before done, let alone done by a young wet-behind-the-ears fellow just in the door. Johnny, though, was able to see things that other players couldn’t see. So he had a cut off Brian. Something about running lines. Johnny wanted something done and Brian hadn’t done it. Brian fought back. He was the god of Irish rugby then.
“We looked on with open mouths. He’s called out BOD! What next? There were a few comments along the lines of ‘fair play to him’ but mainly lads were muttering, ‘Jesus, what does he think he’s at?’”
Sexton is a retired player now. Has been since Saturday night when the Ireland team he captained was surprisingly knocked out of the Rugby World Cup quarterfinals by New Zealand in Paris. The game’s master conductor has put down his baton and walked off the stage.
But O’Driscoll, for one, hopes Sexton has coaching in his future.
“That much rugby IP, it would be such a shame to pass it up,” O’Driscoll told the Off The Ball show. “I can’t see him not being in the game longer term. It’s what he loves. He’s obsessed with it. I loved rugby but I wasn’t obsessed by it like he is.
“He gives it so much thought throughout the day about perfecting everything he does and its just the way he’s made. I would have driven myself stir crazy if I thought about it that much. I can’t see a scenario where he’s not involved in rugby coaching in three years’ time. I hope for his sake (coaching) lights him up like rugby has and, if it does, I’d be jealous of him. To be able to convert from something you love, to a secondary thing you love, it doesn’t happen very often.”
To be fair, Sexton’s uncanny birds-eye view has allowed him for years to coach without the official title.
“Working with Johnny, you can let him go and he can run the show,” Ireland assistant coach Mike Catt said. “He is one step ahead of the game and his thought process is exceptionally quick in terms of where the next play is going. He has a real knack of understanding how we want to play the game, obviously, but then him being able to see it and the authority he drives round the team, you can’t but listen to him.
“People get to understand why he’s as good as he is through his excellence and his drive to become excellent and be bloody-minded and hard-headed in terms of playing to his potential, chasing his potential in every single session,” Catt said. “Players have really thrived on the back of that and and learned a lot from Johnny. What it means for him to play for his country is huge, he epitomises the whole thing.”
And like O’Driscoll learned early, when a player with one cap or 100 doesn’t do the right thing he’s calling them out or giving the Sexton stare.
Cian Healy, with 125 caps, said there was no danger of complacency with Sexton around.
“All of us strive to get to (Sexton’s) standards and we get absolutely torn into when we don’t, but we try,” Healy once said. “Johnny’s standard is so high and it has been for so long that it just drives something special in him. He lives for that successful feeling after a game. The Johnny you see after a game is the most enjoyable Johnny to be around, it’s a different person, it’s class. If anything is going to make me play better, it’s to get to meet that Johnny for a while.”
Kearney played with Sexton for nearly 20 years, from the time they were teens. In his book, Kearney recalled Ireland gathered behind their posts after a move broke down in the 2019 Rugby World Cup quarterfinal in Japan and it leading to another New Zealand try.
“Johnny just gives me filthies whenever I look over at him,” Kearney wrote. “I have learned over the years it’s best not to engage. That just makes it worse for both of us. You don’t stop Johnny in full flow. You might look up at the big screen waiting for the replay to see exactly what happened. If the big screen vindicates you, well then you might come back with a defense. You never come back on Johnny though until you are very sure of your ground.”
Sexton and Wales counterpart Dan Biggar were rated, respectfully, by referee great Nigel Owens as the players who were “the best two referees in the world” because “they always think they know more than you.” By coincidence, Biggar also retired last Saturday after Wales lost its quarterfinal match to Argentina.
The son of a rugby club stalwart and nephew of a brief Ireland test flanker in the 1980s, William Sexton, Jonathan had a self-confidence on the field from a young age. By 15, he’d told family he was going to play for Ireland. By 16, he’d kicked the winning drop goal in the Leinster schools final.
He’d nail so many winning points, in all four ways, as he took to test rugby like a natural. He was man of the match in a rainy debut against Fiji in 2009. Sexton claimed the Six Nations four times, two of them Grand Slams, four European Cups, Ireland’s points record, and world player of the year in 2018.
He was the starting flyhalf for the successful Lions on the 2013 tour of Australia and 2017 tour of New Zealand, but was snubbed for the 2021 tour of South Africa, his durability doubted by coach Warren Gatland, who came to regret the decision and say Sexton “proved me wrong.”
The hurt of that drove Sexton to want to finish his career on a high, and Ireland’s central contracts system allowed him to be protected and optimally prepared at an age — 38 — when many are long retired.
Sexton called the last two years the best of his career. He was energized by and enamored of a younger and hungrier Ireland. Their 17-game winning streak full of monumental results made him less grumpy and far happier, which made him only more dangerous.
“When you go in (camp) you feel their age, you feel they keep you young, you keep tricking yourself to come back. It’s a very special group,” he said.
He had the highest praise, too, for same-pea-in-the-pod coach Andy Farrell and the staff for creating an environment that made “everyone run into camp, never wanting to leave.”
“The best group I’ve ever been a part of, bar none,” Sexton said. “These guys will go on and achieve great things. I’ll be sitting in the stands having a pint.”
“Shouting at them,” Farrell nipped in, “that’s what he’ll be doing.”
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