Johnny Sexton: 'In an ideal world, I'd love to keep going'

The veteran Ireland captain has expressed his desire to continue playing through to the next World Cup, in France 2023

Johnny Sexton: I want to keep playing for Ireland. Picture: INPHO/Dan Sheridan

Johnny Sexton has confirmed that he wants to continue playing through to the Rugby World Cup in 2023.

The Ireland captain, likely to win his 100th cap for his country against Japan at the Aviva Stadium this Saturday, also added that he will probably sit down with the IRFU to discuss a new one-year contract after the next Six Nations.

The Leinster man agreed his current 12-month deal, which expires next summer, in the wake of the 2021 Championship. He did so on the back of a superb individual and team performance in the 32-18 defeat of England in Dublin.

Sexton is 36 now, and will be 38 by the time the next global gathering happens in France, and yet he remains Andy Farrell’s best out-half by a distance. That is both encouraging and worrying for the head coach as he looks two years into the future.

That he is still performing at such a standard, and at such an unforgiving level, is remarkable in the here and now but Warren Gatland’s decision to overlook him for the British and Irish Lions is proof that best-laid plans don’t always pan out.

"Again, at the moment I'm loving it,” he said today. “I'm loving training, my body's good, my mind is good and, yeah, in an ideal world I'd love to keep going. But what I learned last year is that you can't plan too far ahead.

“You really can't. I had everything planned around what I was going to do on the tour in the summer and then suddenly it's up in smoke, so I'm taking it game by game, campaign by campaign.

"The IRFU have been very good to me over the last seven years, since I've come back from Paris, in terms of like... We made a decision at the end of the Six Nations this year, I don't think it will be any different this year. It will be wait until the end of that and see how we all are.”

For now, the focus is on Japan, a side he has never faced in 99 appearances for Ireland, but he allowed himself to be led back down memory lane as he digested just what it will mean to him when he breaks that century-mark this month.

There was a small annoyance last season when injury cost him a cap and the opportunity to bring up the ton in that game against the English, but an appreciation too that he has made it this far having had to wait until the age of 24 to earn his first.

There were nods in the direction of some of the men who have smoothed the path this far: former captains and teammates like Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell, a coaching crew that included Joe Schmidt, Stuart Lancaster and Farrell.

Even Michael Cheika, who kept him waiting so long for his shot at Leinster.

“He taught me about hard work and taught me that you have to earn the right to get into the team and made me properly work for it. It’s very different now. Often guys get a lot of games to prove themselves.

You didn’t get a game back then until you proved yourself in training and you were properly worth your place. I’m probably leaving people out there. I’ve had so many influences through my career and I’m very thankful for all of them.”

It’s that ability to hang in there and bounce back from adversity that makes Sexton more proud than anything else as he surveys the wide expanse of his career. And it’s a patience he would preach to his 24-year old self had he the chance now.

“Don’t take it so seriously,” he offered when asked what specific advice he would share. “But then you wouldn’t be true to yourself. If you are that age and you have the vision to view it as a journey, that there will be ups and downs…

“At the time, when you are in that moment, it feels like the end, it feels like you can’t come back from this or from that bad game, but it is part of your journey.

“It leads you onto something bigger and better when you do bounce back from it because you learn more through the bad times. That’s what I would tell my younger self, but then my younger self would probably tell me to piss off!”

His grumpy nature and insistence on the highest of standards are legendary. Even current players have remarked how the standard of training goes up a notch when he is on-site, but he has never considered it a chore, or even just a job.

Part of that is down to the fact that he has enjoyed such success. Trophies have been plentiful with Leinster and with Ireland. He has starred for the Lions and experienced the life as a very well-paid pro in the French capital.

More of it is down to perspective.

“I had a brother that had a bad injury before his rugby career even started. He’s coaching in Connacht now and I’m reminded every day that, coming up as younger players, if you had put a gun to my dad’s head, he would have said that Mark was going to be the one to make it.

“I know every day how lucky I am. It has never felt like a job. Like I said before, there have been down times where you go, ‘is it really worth it?’ But then you quickly get yourself back off the floor and go again. No, it has been a pleasure.”