Sexton keen to win battle of out-halves with All-Black hero

TWO out-halves with very contrasting memories of the World Cup come face to face at Bath’s Recreation Ground on Sunday afternoon and Jonathan Sexton will be hoping for a reversal in fortunes.

The Leinster number 10 started the World Cup just ahead of Ronan O’Gara as Ireland’s playmaker but ended it as first reserve while Stephen Donald kicked what proved to be the winning penalty in the final having been plucked from obscurity.

It is surely only a matter of time before Hollywood takes an interest in Donald’s story and recalls how he was fishing for whitebait on the Waikato river when a succession of injuries forced Graham Henry to dig for his number.

He has featured just three times for Bath since switching from the Chiefs so footage of him in the English side’s famous hoops is scarce but the Irish 10 is a fan of a player who is big, bold, technically adept and equally imperturbable.

“It was obviously a big pressure kick just after coming off the bench,” said Sexton yesterday.

“It must have been tough because he was probably cold and it was one of the first things he had to do. He showed great bottle because he got a lot of stick in the press over there for the last couple of years.”

Sexton’s form has been such that he has never taken much ‘stick’ from the fourth estate here but his struggles during the tournament were debated endlessly since when he has emerged in much better form for Joe Schmidt’s Leinster.

“I try to just take it as it comes and keep getting better from day to day. That’s what Joe wants us to do. He says you can’t just show up at the weekends and be brilliant. You have to do it every day of every week and that’s what we’re going to try to do — get better every day.”

Leinster travel to the West Country in fine fettle, top of their pool after two rounds, unlike their hosts who must win to keep their knockout hopes alive. That said, this is the Heineken Cup and the margins are ridiculously thin.

“Everyone said that getting a draw away in Montpellier was a good result but it means that if we lose a game the prospect of a home quarter-final is gone and you’d also be under pressure to qualify from the pool. In many ways it’s a must-win game for us this weekend.

“If we win we’re in control of the pool. If we lose then we need other results to go our way which is not where you want to be in the Heineken Cup. It’s one game at a time. Everything is geared towards this weekend, then we’ll start from scratch again afterwards.”