Munster will bounce back, says Sexton

LEINSTER and Ireland out-half Jonathan Sexton has backed Munster to bounce back from their Heineken Cup disappointment.

Rugby supporters in the southern province were dismayed by last week’s defeat away to Toulon, a loss which means Munster miss out on the knockout stages in Europe for the first time in 13 years.

Sexton says the talk of an end of an era is an overreaction, however.

“There are too many good players and leaders in their squad for Munster to be down for long,” he said.

“I think the reaction to the defeat has been a bit over the top. They were in a tough group from the start, and they didn’t lose a home game, but that’s just the way the group worked out.

“Nobody would have expected Toulon to go to London Irish and get a win. It was a tough group and if someone had said at the start of the competition ‘Munster might not get out of it’, you’d say ‘fair enough’, because of the strength of the teams they were up against.

“We’re fully aware of the way the media works. In Leinster we were on the receiving end when we play poorly — at the start of the year we were getting slated, and now we’re doing well, we’re being hyped up to the last.

“Neither is accurate — when we were going badly, we weren’t that bad, and now it’s going well we’re being hyped.”

With a date away to Racing Metro on Friday, Sexton says he and his colleagues are fully focused on securing a home quarter-final.

“We’ve achieved our goal, of getting out of the group, which is a good achievement considering the group we were in. Now we have an opportunity to get a home quarter-final — if someone told us four or five months ago that we had a chance of a home quarter-final, we’d have grabbed it with both hands.

“It’s a big game for us, and we’re looking forward to it.”

The out-half was aware last weekend that Saracens prop Schalk Brits was celebrating his stag night in Dublin after the Heineken Cup clash with Leinster, though he didn’t hook up with the visitors that night in the capital.

“No, I didn’t meet them,” laughs Sexton, “But their whole squad came over for it — all the players, even the lads who weren’t playing in the game. All the backroom staff, just about everyone associated with the club was there (for the stag). They must have had some night.”

Sexton was surprised by Leinster’s winning total in the game but stresses it wasn’t a walkover.

“It wasn’t an easy game by any means and remember we were only three points up at one stage in the first half, we could have been in serious trouble. The try we got just coming up to the break was important, it gave us a chance to catch our breath.

“There were plenty of lads with knocks in the dressing room afterwards, but yeah, I was surprised we got the total we got.”