Ronan O’Gara: Johnny Sexton ready to go the distance against England
O’Gara, Sexton’s kicking coach at Racing Metro, saw the Ireland fly-half successfully negotiate a robust 66 minutes against French Top 14 leaders Clermont Auvergne in Paris on Saturday night. That followed a 70-minute man of the match performance in the win over France seven days earlier in his first game back from a 12-week lay-off enforced following four concussions in 2014.
Sexton came away from that game with a black left eye and stitches in a cut above it suffered in a clash of heads with Mathieu Bastareaud but they remained unscathed against Clermont and now he faces another big challenge in helping Ireland overcome a powerful and confident English side at Aviva Stadium this weekend.
He kicked two penalties and a conversion in the 13-13 draw with Clermont at Stade Yves du Manoir, and Irish Examiner columnist O’Gara said he had no doubts his former Test fly-half rival could go the distance for his country. “It was a tough game physically because Clermont were big boys. The pitch was very soft and a bit grainy and a lot of top players were cramping. But Johnny was physically fine afterwards,” O’Gara said. “The eye didn’t re-open and that’s the most positive thing and he got a good hit-out.
“Obviously our attack game isn’t as fluid as Ireland’s and our shape wouldn’t be as fluid as Ireland’s and that’s an area we need to progress, but Johnny’s progressing well and a little frustrated because we were winning (13-6) when he came off, but he will have benefited from that.
“Ideally you’d like to keep him on for 80 minutes but he has to be managed well now between Ireland and Racing for the rest of the season because it’s important he’s hungry and if he’s hungry it gives us a chance of going to the places we want to go.
“There’s an 80 minutes in Johnny this weekend against England. People forget that for a Test match, especially Ireland-England, adrenalin and emotion takes over. If you can’t play 80 minutes against England in a green jersey there’s something wrong. It’s a special day, the biggest day of your rugby year playing England at home so it’s not a question of can he get through 80 minutes, it’s how sharp and how good he can be for 80 minutes because Ireland will need him to be at his best to control the English team.”
On that front, O’Gara is equally confident Sexton can be at his sharpest to try and engineer victory over Stuart Lancaster’s side on Sunday.
“The most important thing to remember is Johnny had a head injury and the 12-week lay-off was a time-out, preventative, but he was working extremely hard and his head was very clear and he was pretty sharp against France so there were no worries from that point of view.
“So absolutely, the sharpness is there and his kicking has improved probably the most. There’s been a big improvement in his kicking in the last few months. The last three months in particular he’s been striking the ball well and he’s confident in the spiral even though he kicked one out on the full against France but it was a beautiful strike.”
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