World Cup the biggest disappointment of my career, says Johnny Sexton

Jonathan Sexton admits he has struggled to get over the disappointing manner in which the World Cup finished, both for him personally and Joe Schmidt’s Ireland team.

The out-half was well below par for Leinster last Sunday as their European Rugby Champions Cup campaign got off to a disastrous start with a 33-3 home loss to Wasps, a result that leaves them fighting for their survival in Pool 5 this Saturday when they travel to Bath.

Sexton’s World Cup ended prematurely after 25 minutes of Ireland’s last pool game, against France in Cardiff, when he suffered a groin strain and he ultimately sat out the quarter-final loss to Argentina having been initially named in the team.

Fellow Leinster and Ireland colleague Jordi Murphy, as well as assistant Leinster coach Kurt McQuilkin, both dismissed the notion of a collective hangover for the province’s 19 World Cup participants yesterday, but Sexton was less certain.

“I don’t know. It is tough to get over. For me, personally, it was probably the biggest disappointment of my career to come off the pitch in that France game and having felt I had worked so hard. I felt I was coming into a really good place physically and mentally.

“It was going to be a really good time for me and the team and then to miss the guts of that French game and then the Argentina game and watch it all just crumble, I suppose, definitely took a while to get over.

“Then I had to rehab the groin and get over a bit of a chest infection so I am still working back to finding a bit of form and rhythm. Maybe there are a few guys there in that boat, but they are all excuses. What we produced on Saturday wasn’t good enough in every aspect.”

After two years spent living and working in the Paris as an employee of Racing Metro 92, Sexton’s immediate thoughts as he stayed up watching Sky News were for the people he had befriended and their safety. Thankfully, he was able to report yesterday that his circle was safe.

People the world over looked on appalled at the events in the French capital, the familiarity of so many of the locations in question bringing home even more the random nature of the attacks and the realisation that those affected were simply people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sexton had never been to the Bataclan theatre, though some of his former teammates were last season, but the Leinster and Ireland out-half had spent many an evening at the Stade de France watching rugby and football fixtures and taking in concerts.

“Yeah, to see the Stade de France, thankfully the security there... I’ve been there a few times at concerts and games when I was living there, football or rugby games, and security is top notch,” he reflected yesterday.

“At the time, you think it’s a pain in the arse when they’re frisking you going in to watch a football game, but it obviously saved a hell of a lot of lives. But, yeah, it is a worry. But, again, it sort of makes you appreciate being back in Dublin.” Though he left Paris in early summer, Sexton is still finding his feet back in his native city, given he spent well more than three months in camp with Ireland before and during the World Cup. He hadn’t even worn a Leinster training jersey in over two years until two weeks ago.

Still, things appeared to be working themselves out. The new coaching staff seemed to be ticking all the right boxes, the Ireland internationals were reassimilated smoothly enough and two decent Guinness PRO12 results were punched out, away to Treviso and at home to Scarlets.

“We thought we were in a good place and maybe that was half the problem,” he said just two days after the province’s stunning European Rugby Champions Cup defeat to Wasps at the RDS. “We maybe thought it was just going to click into place at the weekend and it certainly didn’t.”

As reported elsewhere on these pages, Sexton didn’t exactly shout down the suggestion a World Cup hangover may perhaps be loitering around the province, but that was by no means offered by way of excuse for the systems meltdown three days ago.

Scrums, lineouts, decision-making, handling, passing, kicking: the number 10 ticked them all off the list of areas which simply did not pass muster. In a squad where one mistake per player per match is unforgivable, Leinster made three times that many.

It was a staggering systems collapse by a side that has known such heights in Europe and which boasts so many internationals and it can hardly all be attributed to the haste with which the internationals have been shoehorned back into blue jerseys since the World Cup.

Leo Cullen spoke of the disjointed nature of their play last weekend whilst making clear that the personnel situation did not amount to an excuse. Sexton held a similar line, while pointing out that the structures and style being attempted by Leinster are slightly different to that of Ireland.

“We’re not getting away with that and I don’t think Leo was either. It was disjointed and a bit all over the place at times and we’ve looked at that this morning to hopefully try and figure out ways of getting around that. Like I said, hopefully we can be a hell of a lot better this week.

“If we’re not, we’re not gonna be far from being out of the competition. Last year, teams obviously qualified out of the pool winning four games and having lost their first two, but with the pool that we’re in, we really need a result this week.”

Meanwhile, captain Isa Nacewa (knee) and Rob Kearney (hamstring) are both facing a race to be fit for next Sunday’s trip to Bath. Neither was fit for the loss to Wasps and both missed training yesterday.

Luke Fitzgerald, Ben Te’o and Rhys Ruddock all took part and are available for selection again while Sean O’Brien, Richardt Strauss and Mike McCarthy are progressing through return-to-play protocols after undergoing head assessments.