Sexton: No bad blood in showdown with O’Gara

JONATHAN SEXTON insists there is no ill-feeling between himself and Ronan O’Gara as the battle for the out-half position on the Irish team intensifies ahead of the November internationals.

A photograph taken after Gordon D’Arcy’s try confirmed Leinster’s defeat of Munster in the Heinken Cup semi-final last May, captured Sexton making sure that a fallen O’Gara knew all about his rapture.

With Sexton providing genuine competition for the green No.10 jersey it would be easy to suggest that there might be some tension between the competitors but it seems nothing could be further from the truth.

Indeed they shared a room on camp recently and as far as Sexton is concerned, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

“We get on fine” he said at last night’s unveiling of the new Volkswagen Polo in Maynooth’s Carton House Golf Club. “We shook hands after the game but there was no dinner or anything. We just went and did our recovery in Riverview and they probably got the bus back to Limerick and Cork.

“The whole ‘do we get on together?’ comes from the incident in Croke Park but in my eyes what happens on the pitch stays on the pitch. I’m not going to take anything he says to me on the pitch personally and there’s nothing in it at all.

“We roomed together at the last Ireland training camp and it’s fine. We chatted about things but there’s no issue at all. If Munster and Leinster teams took everything that happened in those games to heart then the Irish team would never win a match. We go hard on the pitch but afterwards it’s forgotten about.”

Sexton has blossomed since coming in for the injured Felipe Contepomi in that semi-final, showing nerves of steel despite his relative inexperience.

He had been touted as a potential competitor for O’Gara before and fallen by the wayside, but following his heroics in the Heineken Cup final and good start to this season, he is certain to be in Declan Kidney’s squad for the games against Australia, Fiji and world champions South Africa.

“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it because I want to play for Ireland desperately,’’ he said. “It’s not for me to decide, I just want to try and play well.

“I’ve been happy with my form and I think I can step it up another level and hopefully I can do that this weekend and it will put me in a good position to get selected in the squad. I’d be hoping that I will be involved, that’s just because I’m ambitious not because I think I should. “There’s still three more games to go so there’s still a lot of guys fighting for the position. O’Gara has the jersey at the moment but there’s a lot of guys going for it and hopefully I can get it.”

This weekend is critical for Leinster of course given last Friday’s shock opening round Heineken Cup defeat at the hands of London Irish in the RDS. There is no panic in the camp but the defending champions know that they must hit back with a victory in Brive this weekend.

Sexton has heard all the horror stories before about futile visits to France but such is his confidence these days, he is at a loss to explain why playing away should be any different to performing at home.

“Maybe I’m just inexperienced but I don’t really buy into this away games thing. It’s another game and there’ll be a hostile crowd but the refs are so professional that it’s not like there’ll be a home advantage in that way.

“I’m sure we’ll have a nice group of supporters going over and we’ve got to bounce back. It’s great that we have next week to bounce back. It would be terrible if we had the two-month gap in the Heineken Cup to think about it the whole time. Hopefully we can finish this two week block with a win and move on from it.”

Victory in Brive will put Leinster in a similar position to what they were in at the same stage last year and that worked out pretty well in the end. What’s more, in a competitive group, Sexton believes every team will slip up.

“Llanelli are a quality side as well and they can do a job on London Irish this weekend. If they do that and we can win then the group’s at a stalemate. There’s going to be results like that.

“First things first we’ve got to go over to Brive and react. We’ve bounced back from worse than this before and hopefully we will again.”