Johnny Sexton: 'We don’t respect teams more than we do the All Blacks'

Sexton also admitted he is looking forward to having a beer with New Zealand coach Joe Schmidt after the quarter-final clash.

RESPECT: Jonathan Sexton during an Ireland Rugby media conference at Stade Omnisports des Fauvettes in Domont. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile

Johnny Sexton has been there and done that. This is routinely viewed as a good thing.

Experience is supposed to be the making of men and women. It is both building block and cement for character and personality. Until it isn’t.

Experience can traumatise and paralyse. It can hang over a player and a team if the situation is difficult enough, or repeated enough times to seep into the soul.

So what of Sexton here and now, a man playing in a fourth World Cup for a country that has never created a quarter-final?

And what of Ireland who are facing an All Black team that they have beaten more often than not since Chicago, but an opponent that had 32 points to spare when the pair last met at this last eight stage in Japan in 2019?

How does Sexton, speaking yesterday in what is normally a wedding venue miles outside Paris, marry these very different backdrops?

There’s no limit of ways to approach it. Your take is your own. There are players in Andy Farrell’s squad who have lost quarter-finals – the most recent to New Zealand - and others for whom last year’s series down there is the new norm.

Sexton’s answer is to cut himself loose from all that, to maroon himself willingly in the here and now.

“You can look at the last few games, you can say the last time we played them in the quarter-final and got beaten out the gate, it doesn’t really matter.

"The players, despite us winning the series down there, they were incredibly tough games. So they know what’s coming, they know how tough it’s going to be.

“And that’s the most important thing: the physicality that New Zealand bring, the pace they play at, they’re all the things we talk about. We’re not talking about who’s won this or who’s won… We’re very much focused on this weekend and what we expect from them.

“That’s said with the utmost respect because we don’t respect teams more than we do the All Blacks. Their record speaks for itself really.”

Sexton tread a familiar path in highlighting this team’s focus on the mental side of the game. It comes on the back of the IRFU’s report in the 2019 tournament which suggested that ‘performance anxiety’ had been a component part in the failures in the Far East four years ago.

The Leinster veteran and others have spoken time and again about the various scenarios they have faced - the gruelling tour to New Zealand last year, the Grand Slam this year - and how these have all steeled them for the challenge to come, unique though this one is in terms of context.

He followed that up with the reminder that Ireland’s unenviable history in these knockout stages isn’t this group’s responsibility. Many of this squad have never played in the last eight of a World Cup. 

Even those who have feel choose to frame this to suit themselves. Not so much another chance as a fresh slate.

“Each of those groups lost once, it wasn’t the same group losing quarter-finals year after year,” said Sexton.

“If it was club rugby it would probably be a bigger hurdle, but it’s a different group. I don’t think we’re carrying much baggage. It’s a one-off game and we’ve got to prepare for it now.”

It’s one thing to say these things, another again to live them. More remarkable again is the manner in which Ireland seem able to filter the emotions on a case-by-case basis according to their needs. 

Previous failures: no thanks. The surge of Irish support at the Stade de France: hook it to their veins.

Seeing what you want to see is fine as long as it doesn’t lead to a critical blind spot but Ireland have, to a man, been adamant that the presence in the Kiwi camp of Joe Schmidt will not act as some sort of all-seeing eye capable of decoding their secrets and strike plays.

Keith Earls said as much at the start of the week when declaring that this is not the same Ireland team that Schmidt led for six years and Sexton agrees that his old boss’ impact this weekend will be felt almost exclusively in terms of what he brings to the other side.

“You can see evidence of Joe’s coaching through the team. They’ve made big strides over the last 12 months and I know they’ve a different forwards coach as well from when we were there. So they’ve made big strides.

“I know it’s very much a different team we’re playing against. They’ve said it themselves they’re a very different team. So it’s a big challenge. Joe knows us well, we know him well, but Joe doesn’t get to make any tackles or run any lines at the weekend.

“So we just have to worry about the players we’re playing against and not too much about him, but the legacy he left in Irish rugby is massive. His record here is outstanding and so we’ll look forward to having a beer with him after the game.”