Johnny Sexton suffers knockout blow
How ironic that the guillotine should come down on Racing Metro within three minutes of the club taking their favourite Irishman out of harm’s way and parking him on the touchline.
There is, of course, a first time for everything and the man who had never lost a knockout tie in Europe found himself taking the latest and longest count of his decorated career.
Marcelo Bosch’s had only taken one shot at goal all season when Welsh referee Nigel Owens caught a pair of Racing forwards off their feet at a ruck with 13 seconds left. Unlucky for some, even if the odds were stacked against Saracens’ third-choice kicker.
The Argentine’s long-range penalty, made longer still by the wind blowing into his face, floored Racing with the last kick of a gruelling duel.
How appropriate that after 79 minutes and 47 seconds of almost unremitting bash that Sarries should steal it with one thump of Bosch.
In saving the English from being wiped out of the semi-finals en masse, Bosch not only removed Ireland’s current No. 10 from the competition but also his predecessor, Ronan O’Gara in his capacity as part of Racing’s coaching team.
Talk about the boot being on the other foot. It was as if Bosch had taken a leaf out of his coaching manual with one subtle difference.
O’Gara’s mental visualisation did not stretch to imagining himself lying on a beach. “I didn’t want to force the kick so I stayed relaxed,” Bosch said. “Our kicking coach tells me to think about the beach and that relaxes me.’’ Lucky Sarries? For sure, but then Racing threw it away, literally so on two occasions, Dimitri Szarzewski dropping the ball over the try-line in the first half and Juan Imhoff dropping it again a metre or two short of it in the second.
Five minutes later Racing’s top scorer had been knocked out by an accidental Irish knee to the side of the head. Sexton might have sensed there and then that some things, like leaving the Champions’ Cup by the banks of the Seine as a farewell gift, are just not meant to be.
What chance Sarries’ Mark McCall becoming the first Ulsterman to win the big one since Harry Williams for Ulster way back in 1999? Clermont, looming like Beecher’s Brook and The Chair rolled into one, will have something to say about that in St Etienne on Saturday week.
Peter Stringer fished the red guard out of his mouth and turned to the French referee, pleading hands outstretched in supplication. It was as if he was saying to Monsieur Garces: ‘Tell me it ain’t so, Jerome.’
Garces had pinged Bath at the last breakdown when the English challengers could not understand why the penalty hadn’t gone their way because of a Leinster hand in the ruck, as belonging to substitute hooker Richardt Strauss. A shot at goal then would have raised the prospect of Leinster being dragged into extra-time.
Instead, if left Stringer staring at the end of a very long road, the longest ever travelled by one individual in Europe. It began at Perpignan on October 10, 1998, so long ago that Didier Camberabero, the fly half whose wig meant he truly put the rug into rugby, was still calling the shots.
Still sharp in this his 38th year, Stringer has no intention of hanging up his boots, despite Bath’s decision not to retain his services for another season. No Cork native, save for Jack Lynch, Thomas Croke, Christy Ring and Roy Keane, can have had a warmer ovation in Dublin than the one they gave Stringer at the Aviva Stadium.
It was almost as if the crowd sensed they were seeing him on the big stage for the last time...
Some newsworthy events happened in November, 1997, on both sides of the border. There was Mary McAleese’s inauguration as the eighth President of Ireland and Dick Spring’s resignation as leader of the Labour Party.
Up north, at a little place called Holywood, an eight-year-old local boy was almost ready to give the world notice of his arrival. Rory McIlroy was still a few months away from his first hole in one and his first global title, in the 9-10 age category for the best on the planet at Miami, Florida.
Another remarkable event took place, or to be more accurate, did not take place during that month in late autumn a generation ago. Munster failed to put in an appearance at the European Cup quarter-finals, just as they failed to last weekend for the first time in the 18 years since.
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