Johnny Sexton: ‘When you get to my age, you know there are not too many weeks like this left’

Just as he was about to conduct his weekly briefing with the travelling Irish press corps, Johnny Sexton was being implored by the rest of the squad to join them for a photograph beside the players’ coach at the request of their drivers in Wellington this week.

So he skipped out of the clubhouse at the Jerry Collins Stadium where Ireland had been training earlier and bounded on to the pavement with an exaggerated leap before striking a pose. The knee seemed fine.

It will need to be tomorrow, not least as his world-class goal-kicking is so key for Ireland. Sexton watched on as Ciarán Frawley, Joey Carbery and Conor Murray sought to cope with the wind and rain of last Tuesday night in the oval-shaped Sky Stadium in kicking practice before the Maoris’ game.

“I felt for them. Oh my God, sometimes they were trying to draw it in from the right and it blew right. There was double cross, all over the shop. I’m not sure it is due to be so bad on Saturday but from what I gather from different people it is rare that you get a calm night in there so we will just have to prepare for it. Frawls obviously kicked some really good kicks. I think it’s a case of just kick it down the middle and hope that it’s a good enough strike to hold. He did that really well the other night.”

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Sexton would not like a repeat of those conditions for the third Test.

“I think the only people who look out the window on the day of the test match are hookers, 10s and maybe nines, depending on how they play the game,” he said with a wry grin. “For others, the conditions have no bearing. Some of the forwards didn’t even know that it was windy the other night. Look, it can be difficult in there, but I have played there when it hasn’t been too bad. We will see what we are presented with on Saturday.”

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Sexton hadn’t considered whether or not winning a series in New Zealand would rate as highly, or higher, than a Grand Slam.

“It’s never like that in-house. That is noise on the outside. For us, it’s just a chance to do something very special. I suppose we have created a little bit of history by winning a test and now we want to just put out our best performance and see where that gets us.”

That said, Sexton admitted the sense of anticipation is as acute as a Champions Cup final or Grand Slam finale.

“It doesn’t come along too often. It’s a very special week and you’ve got to embrace it, especially when you get to my age and you know that there are not too many left. This is the last tour and you want to make the most of it,” said Sexton, who was presented with a cake by the squad on his 37th birthday last Monday.

“All the boys are the same. They know that most of them will never be back in New Zealand and we want to do something special but at the same time we know how difficult it’s going to be. They are a top quality side. They didn’t play their best last week and I’m sure they will have plans for their performance to improve and we need to find the same.”

In that sense the Irish believed they had to both embrace the opportunity that they have earned, while not overplaying the magnitude of it.

“It’s a bit of both, isn’t it? At the end of the day it’s another game but in some ways it’s not and you’ve got to sort of acknowledge that and talk about it because you hear teams when they get to, say, a World Cup final, they say it’s just another game but it’s not. No one feels like it’s just another game.

“You’ve got to acknowledge it and talk about it and make sure that you get all those things out on the table so that by kick-off time you have nothing bottled up. We have learned some good lessons over the last 18 months, especially in tough away venues — Paris, Eden Park in Test 1 — and I think we didn’t put it all together last week. There’s still plenty that we need to work on but are much improved away from home on this tour.”

The Six Nations defeat away to France had been painful, but playing in front of a Stade de France full house (the atmosphere helped by the stadium bars being closed due to Covid restrictions) an important lesson for this team.

“When we went to Paris, we never spoke about the enormity of the occasion for them. It was their first game in a crowded stadium for a couple of years. We sort of didn’t acknowledge that,” Sexton admitted. “You turn up and the stadium is obviously full of French people, flags, everyone was going ‘Oh my god, we haven’t played in this before.’

“It took the lads by surprise early in the game, how poorly we started, again you talk about the start of games and we have improved on that.

“So, lots of little things like that, and I suppose how much better you need to be away from home because sometimes the 50/50 decisions don’t always go your way and the bounce of a ball doesn’t go your way, so it’s about embracing the atmosphere and thriving in it.”

Sexton has had a few difficult days with Wayne Barnes as referee, most recently in the Champions Cup final, when the endgame penalty count was 5-0 to La Rochelle. But Sexton acknowledged they needed to take Barnes out of the equation.

“Yeah, it’s about trying to be good enough to take any decisions out of it. You can sometimes look back and blame the referee’s decisions, but sometimes it can paper over what we could have done better.

“So, it will all be on us. If the result goes a certain way, it certainly won’t be his decisions, it will be down to how well we played on the day.

“Of course we want the game reffed a certain way and we’d hope that will happen on Saturday. That’s all I can say really on it.”

Whatever about placing a series win in history, interestingly when Sexton was asked what a series win might do for the squad’s momentum in advance of next year’s World Cup, he responded: “Nothing because we have learned the lessons of 2018 and 2019. Next year is obviously a totally different year. Win, lose, draw, whatever happens on Saturday, next season we will start afresh and improve on whatever we achieve on Saturday.

“So if we have a great performance and we win, we need to improve, because it’s World Cup year and other teams are going to evolve. Other teams are maybe tinkering and doing different things. Yep, that’s the biggest lesson we need to take out of the 2018/19 scenario.”