Machenaud: I’ll exploit Sexton’s weak point
“It will be special to play against Johnny Sexton,” grins the 25-year-old, who returned to the France starting line-up in the narrow win over Scotland, on Saturday.
“I will send him a couple of messages this week but I don’t think we will be talking until after the match.”
Sexton may feel he has the inside track on the French but Machenaud is convinced they know the Dubliner’s game well enough from his time in Paris to unsettle the Irish fly-half.
“It’s maybe the weak point that he has (for this match) even if he has very few of them,” says Machenaud.
“I recognise what he wants to do now when he is waiting for the ball, when he’s conducting the play. So I will certainly have some advice for my teammates to help them know how to counteract him.”
Machenaud and Sexton have started seven Top 14 games together this season, enough to forge the beginnings of a working relationship but, as the Frenchman recognises, it isn’t the same as when Sexton is wearing green.
“We know that he is more instinctive when he is playing for Ireland than he is for Racing. That’s normal because he’s played with his two partners in crime in the centre for years.
“He has a little bit more difficulty expressing himself at Racing but he’s still a really great player. He is always looking for perfection. He has come to us and shared his experiences and for a young player like me that has been invaluable. I have no doubt I have improved as a player thanks to him.”
Marchenaud admitted, though, that he hadn’t been getting help from any other Irish quarter. “I tried to talk to (Racing kicking coach) Ronan O’Gara about how to play against him. But I didn’t get much out of him. I think he is still with Ireland!”
Another Irishman who knows the French game well is former Leinster and Toulouse number eight Trevor Brennan. Never one to hold back on the field, he landed a few verbal blows as he launched a tirade on the French team in the sports daily L’Equipe.
“The French are playing very badly,” he said. “The Irish want to die on the pitch but I don’t have the impression that is the same for the French.
“Les Blues are terrible in the lineouts, the rucks and the mauls, they aren’t aggressive and they don’t clean out... I get the impression they aren’t hungry. They lack a leader. There is no Paul O’Connell or an O’Driscoll, someone who can drive the bus.
“Individually they are all good players. But you might argue that the coach (Philippe Saint-Andre) isn’t letting them play. They lack a little unpredictability. They are afraid.”
The French are under increasing pressure after an unconvincing win in Edinburgh. That showed yesterday when prop Nicolas Mas walked out of a press conference after a series of questions about France’s scrummage, objecting not just to questioning but the snickering of the journalists. “This is not funny,” he snapped as he left.
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