Best eases fears over Sexton back scare

Rory Best is confident Ireland’s rookies can benefit from the experience packed around them when Wales visit the Aviva Stadium today and has eased fears that another youngster will not be thrown in at the deep end after a Johnny Sexton injury scare.

Fly-half Sexton, the drop-goal hero of Paris in the opening game of this season’s NatWest 6 Nations earlier this month, missed the early part of Ireland’s light workout at the Aviva yesterday as he received pitchside treatment on his lower back from team physiotherapist Colm Fuller.

Captain Best said Sexton, 32, completed the session and was the player vital to Ireland’s hopes of victory today was also photographed goal-kicking.

“He was grand,” Best said of the fly-half, “it’s just that he’s just getting a bit older, so he needed a bit longer to warm up, but he came into the tail-end of the session.

He let the subs run at the start and then the starters finished off. No concerns.”

Best, 35 and about to play his 109th game for Ireland, believes Andrew Porter, James Ryan and Chris Farrell have shown maturity and confidence in the early days of their Test careers.

“It is frightening when you see how good some of these guys are, so young, but ultimately as powerful as they are or as good at rugby as they are, there will come moments when they need guidance and they need a little bit of help through a game or through the preparation for a game and that’s what you’ve got to be there for.”

INPHO/Billy Stickland

The skipper added: “I don’t think you can ever predict how someone is going to react in the Test arena but what you can do is take confidence from their previous, whether it’s one, two, three, four, five caps, and how they’ve performed in crunch games.

“You can just look at how they performed there and take your confidence from that, that they are big-game players."

Best recognised the challenge ahead and said: “We have prepared really well but experience tells us that preparation is just one little part of it.

"Ultimately it is how you turn up tomorrow and put all these best-laid plans into practice and when you get into the uncontrolled environment of Test-match rugby, it is about keeping your cool, keeping your discipline, and when you get the opportunities, it is about taking them.

We have prepared well but now, over the next 24 hours, we need to make sure that mentally we are ready to go into a battle that is going to be this game tomorrow because Wales are going to come here and everything they have said so far suggests they are coming here expecting to win, so we are going to need to be prepared and ready to play the best 80 minutes we have played this season.”