Ronan O'Gara, Johnny Sexton and the photo that sparked an Irish rugby rivalry

'I took that': Inpho's James Crombie on the day Johnny Sexton 'lorded it over' Ronan O'Gara at Croke Park as Irish rugby's two most compelling modern characters came into focus for the first time

SCORE-SETTLING: Jonathan Sexton and Ronan O'Gara exchange words. Picture: James Crombie/Inpho

I started in Inpho in 2007 so I was only there two years and I didn’t really know much about rugby at that time, to be honest. At that stage Leinster were still playing league games in Donnybrook and I’d been to games there and it was a good crowd on a Friday night kind of thing.

Munster were the big boys then, Leinster kept failing, and in my naivete, I just thought Munster would roll up with O’Gara, Howlett, O’Connell and do what they usually did.

Then Felipe Contepomi got injured and I was thinking ‘oh no, Sexton’s coming on, this is not going to be good’ and that was the general perception at that stage. He was definitely the weaker option at 10 for everybody and I thought ‘they’re done now’.

He’s wearing 21 and who would have thought, but he obviously thought more...

Gordon D’Arcy scored the try and I had no idea what was going on in the foreground, I was only worried about getting the celebration. Then I looked back at the camera and said ‘uh oh, there’s something here’.

It’s so unusual. People score a try, there might be pushing and shoving but I’ve never seen anyone do that.

You can see his fists are clenched, mouth wide open, he really let him have it. O’Gara’s on the deck and he’s lording over him. Horgan and Luke Fitzgerald, they’re celebrating D’Arcy and his finish but Sexton knew where to go. He really wanted to go at him.

It was a seminal moment for Sexton and Leinster. You watch the video of it and it’s such a fleeting moment but in this case a picture can definitely tell a more a vivid story than a video and that second, caught in time really emphasised a really, seminal changing of the guards there in terms of the Irish 10s.

Now, I’m not saying there was a lot of skill, the celebration was happening right in front of me and it coincidentally happened at the same time. You take your chances, we had a photographer in each of the four corners and it could have happened in any corner. I was lucky that it happened in the corner I was assigned to.

I’d love to go back 15 years later and see the sequence of pictures, there’s probably a better frame in there! But that one will do. I get a kick out of seeing it because I like to think that picture kind of fuelled it. Maybe it did, but it’s lovely to know the power a picture can have sometimes. 

We’re still talking about it 15 years later and I get a buzz out of that. And it’s still relevant, Sexton and O’Gara are still the pivotal characters in Irish rugby.

Interview: Simon Lewis