Johnny Sexton: Too many Irish? Who are you talking about?

Irish Daily Mirror

5 hours ago

Johnny Sexton is looking relaxed at UCD, he's officially an assistant coach with the Lions and were there a bracket after it the title it would say with responsibility for out-halves and kicking.
And, oh yeh, he is Irish.
Which is something be warned in advance, for this Tour, close to a red rag for certain sections of the UK rugby world as in Irish coach Andy Farrell pick almost his entire Ireland coaching team and 16 Ireland players to tour. There is a soft lob question on this and Sexton-the-coach takes it in whereas Sexton-the-Ireland-captain would have gone monobrow and given the questioner the full 10,000-yard stare before answering.'Well Ireland have done pretty well over the last few years I think, having won the Championship last year, the Grand Slam the year before," he says breezily."So you're probably looking at form over the last three years. With some players, I think the coaches probably look at form over seven, eight, nine years. It's not just if you played well in a couple of games in the Six Nations."You can force your way in but sometimes you take a bigger picture look with players and obviously they know the way Andy coaches, they know the system."So it didn't surprise me because, historically, let's say when there was a Welsh coach and the Welsh team had done well, they were in the majority, the Welsh team.'I think the teams that perform the best in terms of their SIx Nations performances, I think they got selected."He has punted the hot ball back and is a little surprised it is kicked back to him.'Everyone has their own opinion. That's the beauty of sport isn't it? I can go through the players and think 'who are you talking about that you wouldn't have picked?'."Because for me, in the last three or four years, they've been consistently performing well and again sometimes you can be swayed by how the Six Nations finished when the first game, Ireland vs England, that was a great performance and that still comes into consideration.'I have never seen as thorough a process in terms of all the combinations, the amount of players that were considered, the amount of players that were talked about."Andy did all of those players justice in terms of putting enough research, work, asked relevant people and he's picked the squad that he thinks gives him the best chance to win the tour."But then Sexton's happy to be here, happy to have had his rugby time post-playing extended, to be back in a polo shirt, tracksuit and trainers.
"It's been amazing," he says of having accepted an invitation extended last November by Andy Farrell to join the backroom staff for the coming jaunt to Australia."My role is a little bit of everything really, it depends on what person you're working with and what form they're in."The first week has just been getting to know Marcus and Fin Smith. I've played against Marcus a couple of times, I don't think I've played against Fin Smith."It depends on whether they need a little bit of help or if they're in a good place, remarkably talented, great characters, great people. I've got to know that over the first week and I'm looking forward to working with them."How we progress this week, it's trying to get to know how they kick the ball, what are their cues, if they miss, what do they want to hear."Do they want technical information? All those things. I'm getting to know them and try work it out that way."Helping out the lads gives me a huge amount of pride to come in and put the - not a jersey - but a badge on your chest. It's been great to be a part of. A great group so far."Obviously we have the Leinster and Bath boys joining today which will be good because they'll be in good form with their wins."Sexton and Farrell were always close allies so it's like they reformed the band, Andy is Noel and reaching out to Liam... 'Well, it's been amazing to see already," says Sexton of the upcoming tour. "We're only week one and the standard of training, the atmosphere, the environment that he's created already in getting people to share ideas, whether you're a coach or a player, making it really inclusive.
"Everyone has a voice, everyone has a say, and the last thing that Andy wants is fast forward to six weeks' time, and whether you've won or lost a series, he doesn't want people saying 'Oh, we should have done this' or 'we should have done that'."He wants you to speak now and that's the greatest part of the environment. Yeah, it's a pretty special place to be at the moment and I'm sure t's going to get better over the next couple months.'Yeah, that's what Andy demands of you, the demands that you give yourself to the tour, give the best version of yourself and they're his words and you will have heard them before and that's all he really wants."He's picked you for a reason as a player or as a coach and he wants you to come in and be yourself and make an impact.'There is a second influential coach from Sexton's storied career involved in the Lions-Australia series, Joe Schmidt, a coach who's career he has followed with interest."You can see the impact Joe has had already. The narrative at the start of the year was 'will Australia be competitive?' and then they go and beat Wales, beat England and come very, very close to beating Ireland and suddenly the narrative changes _ 'it's going to be an incredibly hard tour'.'You always knew it was going to be a hard tour and particularly with Joe in there. He's a smart coach and a smart man."He'll have them well prepared and it's important that we just get ourselves in a place where we can get into the Test series and attack it, and it's going to be a great one I think.'