Johnny Sexton fed up with ex-pros ‘jumping on bandwagon’
The 30-year-old has bounded back into form for province and country in the past three months, as Leinster now set their sights on reclaiming the Guinness PRO12 trophy they last won in 2014.
However, it has not been an easy season for Sexton who came off the back of a disappointing World Cup with Ireland and then struggled as Leinster produced the worst European Cup campaign in their history.
During the Six Nations, Sexton was singled out for rough treatment by each of Ireland’s opponents and every time he took a blow to the head, the discussion about his health reappeared across the media.
As Sexton said earlier in the year, much of the conversation regarding his welfare has been inaccurate and at the Topaz ‘Cash for Clubs’ initiative yesterday, he stressed that he had only suffered two serious concussions in his career.
The former Racing 92 playmaker last suffered a concussion against Australia in 2014 after which an independent French neurologist stood him down for a period of three months.
“No one wants to take 12 weeks off when you feel you can recover. In hindsight, it was a great thing to do for me, for my career long-term. I haven’t had any problems since, despite what gets reported,” Sexton said.
“Sometimes you can get a bang on the head and other times you can have serious concussion so I have said I have had two bad ones. Then other people said I had four and had to take a break, but two of the ones that happened weren’t that bad. The neurologist knew that but still felt that they were substantial enough to include them within the remit.”
Sexton’s unease over the media reports were compounded when former players began to get involved.
“It’s not just some [people] in the media, it’s ex-players that don’t know. They just jump on the bandwagon. It is frustrating and it is disappointing. They could pick up the phone and ask me but sometimes they don’t want the answer before they go on about it [in public],” Sexton said.
“All the stuff that was reported really wasn’t true and it creates a perception about you from a physical [standpoint]. If I was out of contract, clubs wouldn’t even consider talking to me last year with all the stuff that was in the papers. They wouldn’t have made any offers,” Sexton said.
“People don’t consider that. They just throw out that this guy suffers from concussion. I don’t. I had one issue that season (2014/15) and it was put to bed and I haven’t had any since.”
The 2013 British and Irish Lions out-half also insisted that he wouldn’t be changing the way he plays the game just to avoid injury.
“Once upon a time I was criticised that I couldn’t tackle, it’s funny how things can go from that to people then saying ‘oh, you tackle too much’. I just go out and try to play my best and give it my all. It’s very hard to tell other people to defend if you’re not doing it yourself,” he added.
Regarding his slow start on his return to Leinster, Sexton admitted that after two years with Racing 92, the long build-up to the World Cup and the change in coaching staff at the province, he was caught off guard when he finally pulled on a blue jersey back in November.
“I thought it was going to be plain sailing. I thought I was just going to come back in and it would be like old times, but it wasn’t,” Sexton said, as he reflected on Leinster’s five pool defeats from six in the Champions Cup.
“I struggled myself at the start performance-wise and had a couple of really bad games in Europe. Since then, I’ve been more comfortable in the environment, my form has been much better, but obviously that was overshadowed by a couple of bad performances and I was disappointed with myself and it probably cost me, in a lot of ways,” Sexton said.
However, Sexton believes that winning the PRO12 this season can pave the way towards European success, in the same manner that Leinster’s 2008 Celtic League title saw them win their first Heineken Cup in 2009.
“We let ourselves down in Europe but I think we are building something. This is our start point and we want to finish on a high this season,” Sexton said.
“The last team didn’t just get good overnight. It started with a Magners League, it built into some harsh lessons in Europe, then eventually we got there and we stayed there for a good few years.”
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