Tadhg Beirne: Peter O'Mahony and Jack Crowley can fill Johnny Sexton void

The 2023 Grand Slam winners begin life without their talisman of a decade in Marseille on Friday night when Ireland’s Guinness Six Nations campaign gets underway with a potentially titanic clash with France at Stade Velodrome.

Wed, 31 Jan, 2024 - 01:00

Simon Lewis, Quinta do Lago

Tadhg Beirne is as eager as any Ireland supporter to see how life moves on after Johnny Sexton but he backs both Peter O’Mahony and Jack Crowley to fill the voids his retirement has left as both a captain and fly-half.

Andy Farrell named O’Mahony as Sexton’s successor as captain when the head coach unveiled his 34-man squad a fortnight ago and will this afternoon reveal who will take the green number 10 jersey the 38-year-old vacated after Ireland’s World Cup ended in Paris last October.

Crowley, 24, is favourite for the role having provided back-up for Sexton off the bench throughout the World Cup campaign and with fellow tournament squad-mate Ross Byrne injured, the Munster playmaker has been exposed to more Test rugby with nine caps than fellow 10s Harry Byrne and Ciaran Frawley.

Beirne knows both O’Mahony and Crowley well, of course, as a fellow Munster player and speaking from Ireland’s training camp on Portugal’s Algarve, ahead of this afternoon’s flight from Faro to Marseille, he spoke of his anticipation to see them step into the big shoes vacated by Sexton.

“He’s a massive character to lose within the group,” Beirne said of Sexton, “but we’ve incredible players excited to fill those shoes and step up and make their own mark, not just on the field but around the place as well.

“We’ve lost a few characters from the World Cup so you can see lads filling those voids straight away and the group is in great form. So we’re not too worried about it, we have to move on from it.

“He’ll still go down as a legend in Irish rugby for everything he’s done but we’re into a new Six Nations without him so we’re looking forward to see what the lads can do.”

Beirne has been impressed by Crowley’s drive to improve and has seen at close hand the fly-half’s diligence and hunger for knowledge.

“We speak about Johnny and he was learning so much from him last year. You could see him asking him so many questions, trying to figure out how Johnny did things. He does his own things his way as well and works incredibly hard.

“You see him at the video all the time, see him staying behind in Munster till all hours, doing video work and stuff so he has a real hunger to become the best player he can possibly be and hopefully we’re going to see that from him if he’s playing over the next couple of weeks.”

As for forward packmate O’Mahony, from whom Beirne has sought guidance at Munster as one of the province’s interim skippers following the Test centurion’s decision to step down after a decade as club captain, the lock/flanker agreed that the phrase “natural born leader” applied perfectly to the Corkman.

“Yeah, 100 per cent. I think it was one thing before I even came to Munster, Pete was always on of those characters, as is he is to a lot of people who see from the outside in and you presume he’d be a good leader. But it’s not until you’re in a room with him when he starts speaking or he feels the need to speak that you listen to every word he says.

“You’re certainly ready to go out into battle, right behind him, when he goes out onto the field so natural born leader would certainly be a way I’d put it for sure.”

Beirne does not expect O’Mahony’s captaincy style to change from his leadership contributions alongside Sexton in Ireland camp in recent years.

“It’s just a natural kind of thing. He’s always been a leader within here so not much changes other than he has the captaincy role in terms of the ‘C’ beside his name on the team sheet.

"He still does exactly what he’s doing. Johnny did a few things in terms of he’d like to approach a games in terms of meetings and stuff. Whether Pete wants to do those things, that’s up to him but I don’t think much will change in terms of him speaking or him leading because he’s always done it in here and always been an incredible leader with Ireland and within Munster.

"So I don’t think much will change from that perspective.”