Peter Jackson: Sexton's phenomenal endurance shows no sign of waning
ALL SMILES: Ireland’s Johnny Sexton celebrates winning. Pic: INPHO/Dan Sheridan
A monumental landmark passed unnoticed at the weekend, lost in the routine blizzard of largely trivial statistics. Of all the Grand Old Men of the Six Nations, Johnny Sexton is now the grandest, undeniably so.
SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2025
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
SIX NATIONS RUGBY CHAMPIONSHIP 2025
Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.
He clinched the title simply by setting the championship in motion, a basic act which confirmed the Dubliner’s rise to the very summit of a steep mountain, superseding one of the mightiest English oaks from the world-beating yeomen of a generation ago.
Simon Shaw had stood in splendid isolation since making his last stand, against Ireland at Landsdowne Road before England decided that at 37 going 38 he had run out of time. Nobody that old had lasted that long in the Six Nations, until now.
After more than a decade at the top of the tree, the venerable Lions’ lock has been replaced by the fly-half who saw him off all those years ago with a fusillade of five goals in a thumping home win.
Sexton in Cardiff on Saturday afternoon happened to be nine days older than when Shaw came to the end of his Six Nations road before defying the odds to make the World Cup later that year, one month into his 39th year.
Ireland’s captain intends doing likewise in France this autumn, two months after turning 38. Watching his supervision of the earliest knock-out suffered by Wales at home in the Six Nations was to be reminded that his phenomenal endurance shows no sign of waning.
He continues to do for rugby what the Olympians Haile Gebrselassie, Wilson Kiprotich and Emil Zatopek did for long-distance running, a claim awaiting official confirmation that he continues to defy the ultimate test, time itself.
To describe Sexton as an emperor surveying his kingdom is to do him an injustice, creating an impression that he leaves the dirty work to subordinates. Against Wales he did what he always does; getting stuck in, relishing the close-quarter wrestle, unflinching in the tackle as demonstrated by one on the gigantic George North at full gallop.
Next Saturday at The Aviva will be another first, for the elder statesman and the Six Nations. Never before has the tournament had the privilege of being able to match the top two teams in the world with a Grand Slam at stake.
That Sexton is now within 15 points of overtaking Ronan O’Gara as the championship’s overall record scorer may be a long way down his list of priorities but it will be at the very top of the opposition’s after conceding 18 penalties.
No team can give away that many and expect to win. The champions got away with it, somehow, but 18 more in Dublin will sweep Sexton past his predecessor in next to no time and cost France the title inside the distance.
Nobody is more aware of that than Shaun Edwards. As the great defence guru told ITV before retreating from Rome: ‘’We know if we play like that again, we’ll be on the end of a 15 or 20-point hiding in Dublin.’’
Johnny Sexton, Ireland, 37 years 208 days
Simon Shaw, England, 37 years 199 days
Alun-Wyn Jones, Wales, 37 years 138 days
Andrea Lo Cicero, Italy, 36 years 313 days
Diego Dominguez, Italy, 36 years 303 days
Nick Easter, England, 36 years 218 days
Rory Best, Ireland, 36 years 213 days
John Hayes, Ireland, 36 years 131 days
Any historian wondering whatever happened to the British Empire might have stumbled on a clue at Twickenham; a hefty relic of ancient imperialism redeployed in the name of Scottish rugby.
Four South Africans lining up to sing Flower of Scotland sounds rather a lot but that’s barely the half of it. By the time they finished England off, the Afrikaans-speaking quartet (Willem Nel, Pierre Schoeman, Duhan van der Merwe, Kyle Steyn) had been reinforced by two fair dinkum Aussies (Sione Tuipulotu, Jack Dempsey) and a Kiwi (Simon Berghan).
Far from denigrating a very worthy Scottish win, the array can also be viewed as thumping proof of how successful Murrayfield’s recruiting agents have been in scouring the globe for likely lads with grannies from Glasgow or, in Steyn’s case, a mother from the same place.
The rest of the émigré Springboks without the same umbilical cord took the residential route, one followed most recently by Dempsey despite his status as a fully-fledged Wallaby.
Ireland, no slouches in the nationality-conversion business, would have had six of their own imported from South Africa, New Zealand and Australia but for Jamison Gibson-Park’s last-minute withdrawal from the no-contest in Cardiff.
Wales are a long way behind, not because of a commendably moral wish to keep their squad all-Welsh but because the overseas signings made by their four regional teams haven’t been good enough.
Traditionalists on both sides of the Irish Sea will never understand why anyone without an ancestral connection can represent their country, let alone provide one-third of the starting XV. No wonder Argentina and South Africa, the only countries to rely exclusively on home-grown produce, feel aggrieved.
The topic demands viewing through a global perspective, one which puts the Pumas and the Springboks at a disadvantage.
Charles Ollivon is unlikely to be in any rush to watch a re-run of Sunday’s fraught experience in Rome. The former captain needs no reminding of his costly part in how close France came to sabotaging their own winning run.
He will also realise that the camera is always liable to catch an embarrassing sign. Early on, as the TMO checked his touchdown, Ollivon gave his team-mates a thumbs-up which said: ‘Don’t worry, mes amis, it’s a try.’’ A minute or so later it had been disallowed, rightly so for a knock-on. Worse was to come. When the Italian pack charged within metres of the French line, Ollivon pulled it down and paid the price as demanded by law, a yellow card and a penalty try.
Before the offender had served his time, Harlequins’ fly half Tommaso Allan turned the punishment into a treble-whammy with the penalty which put Italy in front for the first time.
Little wonder that at the end Ollivon looked less than thrilled, as if all too aware of what the new week will bring: a tete-a-tete with Shaun Edwards, annoyed at what he acknowledged as the worst defensive performance by any of his Union teams: Wasps, Wales, the Lions and France.
England at Twickenham are in danger of becoming a bit like Liverpool at Anfield and everywhere else, a soft touch. The euphoria over Eddie Jones’ exit and Steve Borthwick’s entry made a seventh defeat in 13 matches over the last twelve months all the harder to bear.
Rugby rarely does fairytales which doesn’t excuse the gods for the cruelty they heaped upon Paul O’Connell just when Ireland promised to break the quarter-final barrier at the 2015 World Cup.
Warren Gatland has been around long enough to appreciate that the start of his second coming as Wales’ head coach could have been worse. Despite his team having been effectively counted out at the end of the first quarter, he managed to finish with one of his Irish records intact.
The 30-point winning margin inflicted on Wales under Gatland in his last away match before the IRFU sacked him still stands. Had the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules been applied, referee Karl Dickson would probably have stopped it before half-time. With the rampant Scots next up at Murrayfield, Welsh fans are wondering where it will all end.
Strange as it may sound, Gatland said: ‘’We will take a lot from that…’’ Another beating in Edinburgh and he may begin to feel a bit like a trio of football managers who found it impossible to recreate what they had first time round: Kenny Dalglish at Liverpool, Kevin Keegan at Newcastle and Zinedine Zidane at Real Madrid.
Matthew Carley is a top-class referee who goes about his job with a smile as he did in Rome on Sunday. A shame that he was not once heard using a word or a phrase in Italian or French or Welsh given that Italy’s scrum-half, Stephen Lorenzo Varney, comes from Carmarthen.
15 Hugo Keenan (Ireland); 14 Max Malins (England), 13 Garry Ringrose (Ireland), 12 Stuart McCloskey (Ireland), 11 Duhan van der Merwe (Scotland); 10 Finn Russell (Scotland), 9 Ben White (Scotland); 1 Ellis Genge (England), 2 Dan Sheehan (Ireland), 3 Willem Nel (Scotland); 4 Niccolo Cannone (Italy), 5 James Ryan (Ireland); 6 Anthony Jelonch (France), 7 Michele Lamaro (Italy), 8 Caelan Doris (Ireland).
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