Peter Jackson: Johnny Sexton joins the most illustrious of rugby clubs
Johnny Sexton: Joining the most illustrious of rugby clubs. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan
Before leaving Cardiff last weekend to start work on his second Test century, Beauden Barrett paid fitting tribute to the Welsh fans, lauding them as ‘hard to beat’. New Zealand’s supreme play-maker could have been forgiven for wondering whether a few had strayed onto the pitch given that the generosity from the stands had been matched and then superseded by a Welsh team plunging towards another landslide defeat.
The Japanese may well be the most polite people on the planet, a reputation reinforced by unfailing communal courtesy throughout their hosting of an unforgettable World Cup, but not even they have a hope of bowing to Johnny Sexton’s 100th match for Ireland the way Wales bowed to Barrett on his for the All Blacks.
They gave him one try at the start, not on anything as common as the proverbial plate but a silver salver, no less. And then they brought the tray back out again, suitably inscribed, to present him with another try in the last minute.
Very few out-halves, fly-halves, stand-offs, call them what you will, have played one hundred times internationally for their country. That Sexton is only the sixth underlines the severity of staying sharp enough in body and mind for long enough to survive an endurance test like no other anywhere else on the rugby field.
Some of the greatest No. 10s never lasted long enough to make their century which merely emphasises the magnitude of the feat performed by those who did. None, of course, would have been more deserving than Jonny Wilkinson, after almost 20 years still the only European to land the goal which won the World Cup.
He pulled up in the nervous Nineties, a series of sledgehammer blows having put the milestone beyond even his reach. Michael Lynagh called it quits after 72 Tests for the Wallabies as did Andrew Mehrtens after two fewer for the All Blacks.
The daddy of them all, Jack Kyle, hardly missed a match for Ireland from 1947 to 1958 and yet barely got halfway there. His magical Welsh successors as Lions, Barry John and Phil Bennett, played fewer still partly because, as JPR Williams points out: “They didn’t chuck caps around like confetti in those days.”
You get his drift but nothing can detract from those tens whose careers have scraped the skies. None found it exactly a piece of cake because there has never been an easy way of getting there, no matter how much the Welsh unwittingly smoothed the way for Barrett last Saturday night.
Ronan O’Gara, the first century-maker from this side of the equator, did so against South Africa at Croke Park 11 years ago. They didn’t exactly kill him with kindness at the time. Far from being centre stage, he started hidden from view on the bench and he was still trying to keep the splinters from his backside more than an hour later when someone gave him the nod. Fourteen minutes remained, long enough for the Munster sub to put Rob Kearney in at the corner.
O’Gara doesn’t need anyone to tell him that international sport isn’t big on sentiment. His attempted conversion from the touchline on the wrong side for a right-footed kicker would have levelled the score at 23-all with five minutes left had it not smacked off the inside of the near upright and bounced the wrong way.
No fly-half can ever have survived a more nightmarish start than Stephen Jones and still made it to three figures. His initiation, against the Springboks, newly-anointed World Cup winners in the most forbidding of their temples at Loftus Versveld, almost yielded a century on the spot: South Africa 96, Wales 13.
The rugby gods are always liable to ambush anyone’s big day by playing a dirty trick just to show who’s in charge. Even the very best of the post-professional fly half breed, Dan Carter, suffered such a fate on his 100th, at Twickenham eight years ago when England went close to making the All Blacks pay for his absence, Carter had been forced into a limping exit within the first half hour, a mere blip in the great scheme of things. Two years later he was back at the same place, winning another World Cup as the perfect final bow.
Should Sexton’s century turn out to be a replica of his debut, it will reinforce the Dubliner’s avowed ambition of staying in one piece long enough for the next global jamboree, in France in 2023. Against Fiji in teeming rain at the RDS 12 years ago, he ran the show as if he’d be doing it all his life.
The newcomer landed all seven attempts at goal, three from the touchline and reduced the man-of-the-match award in a 41-6 home win to a no-contest. As introductions go, it earned him selection ahead of O’Gara against the Springboks the following week at Croke Park where Sexton’s five penalties clinched a famous home win.
At 36, he will be the oldest fly half centurion by some distance, five years older than the youngest, Carter at 31. Maybe so but the way Sexton sees it, there is still a long road to be travelled to journey’s end.
