Exile O’Leary wants born-again London Irish to become ‘fifth province’ for Ireland

When Johnny Sexton reported for autumn international duty with Ireland last month, new head coach Joe Schmidt was on tenterhooks.

Ex-New Zealand schoolteacher Schmidt coached Sexton every day for three years at Leinster. The moment Sexton joined Racing Metro and Schmidt stepped up to Ireland last summer though, that chain of command disintegrated.

Sexton’s big-money French move dumped a whole new world of problems on Ireland, with Schmidt forced to concede the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) had “lost control” of one of its chief assets.