Lions role sees Johnny Sexton jump into coaching's deep end

DEEP END: News that Johnny Sexton has committed to a summer with the British and Irish Lions, and to the IRFU on a longer-term basis, wasn’t expected on Thursday morning. This isn’t the same as saying it came as a shock. Well, not the IRFU part anyway. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

News that Johnny Sexton has committed to a summer with the British and Irish Lions, and to the IRFU on a longer-term basis, wasn’t expected on Thursday morning. This isn’t the same as saying it came as a shock. Well, not the IRFU part anyway.

The one-time Leinster, Ireland and Lions talisman had tried to distance himself from talk of a coaching pathway long before his illustrious playing career came to an end on a bitterly disappointing night in Paris in October of 2023.

He had already by then been spending time with the Ardagh Group prepping for life after rugby, and he duly took up his post with the packaging company once the immediate sting of that World Cup quarter-final exit had seeped from his pores.

Only a year later and he was stepping into the role of part-time assistant with Andy Farrell’s Ireland team, his one-foot-in-one-foot-out status heightened by the absence for a time of any photos of him at training and his non-appearance at games.

It didn’t matter, Sexton was already on the hook.

So it was that the IRFU and the Lions dropped their bombshells almost simultaneously this week with the union confirming that he is to take on an expanded role working with various men’s and women’s national age-grade sides up to the senior level.

He will also serve as an assistant to Farrell with the national Test squad so it will be interesting to see how such a sweeping brief translates into reality further down the chain and outside of the November, Six Nations and summer tour windows.

This is basically a role that didn’t exist before now so it is a sign of just how highly-rated Sexton is by Andy Farrell and IRFU performance director David Humphreys that it has been fashioned specifically to inveigle the man back lock, stock and barrel into the game.

A couple of things here.

First off, Sexton has gone on record before about the transitory nature of the coaching life. A man with a young and settled family in Dublin, this was clearly an issue for him in, initially, steering clear of the demands that come with donning a tracksuit and a whistle.

This offers him a state of permanence, in as much as that is ever possible in that side of the game. Sexton will be embedded in the system from underage levels and any involvement with the women’s side of the game would be a massive boon there.

This long-term focus was obvious in his take on a Lions role that will start and finish in a matter of months when he spoke about how he is “hugely excited to continue the next chapter in my coaching journey” with the iconic touring team.

He isn’t the first Irish great to jump wholeheartedly into the shark-infested pool that is full-time coaching after a spell dangling his toes at the water’s edge. Paul O’Connell was lukewarm at best until the IRFU fast forwarded him through the system.

The one-time Leinster, Ireland and Lions talisman had tried to distance himself from talk of a coaching pathway long before his illustrious playing career came to an end on a bitterly disappointing night in Paris in October of 2023. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Prior to his elevation to Farrell’s staff, O’Connell’s only coaching work had been a short and abortive stint with Stade Francais as an assistant and some side hustles with the Munster academy and the Ireland U20s.

Ireland’s lineout has been suspect in recent times but the Munster man’s impact was instant on arrival and belied that inexperience. Many has been the player to laud that impact and Sexton’s short stint with the side has been received, publicly, in similar fashion.

So Farrell will expect similar returns, in the short and the long-term.

“I’ve seen a big improvement behind the scenes,” said the Ireland and Lions head coach late last year. “Sexton, you know Johnny, he wouldn’t want to come in all screaming and, ‘look at me, I’m here’ etc.

“He’s come in softly at the start and he’s certainly building through it now and we see a lot of improvement in the areas that he’s coaching at the minute.” The Lions gig will be a searching test of that growth in a short space of time.

It is an immediate chance to make up for the 2021 tour when Warren Gatland decided against picking him, and don’t forget that he has labelled the Kiwi’s decision to give players time off before the third Test in 2017 as “crazy” and unprofessional”.

His work ethic and sharp tongue are legendary, and his Lions appointment hasn’t gone down well with the online community outside of Ireland, not least given the green hue already in place on Farrell's staff.

It’s mere months since Sexton used the word “flashy” to describe Finn Russell, many people’s front-runner for the No.10 jersey, and there will be plenty of English and Scottish players touring who will know only the flinty out-half of recent times.

The playing squad that Farrell names in London’s O2 on May 8th will be buttressed by a strong Irish spine as well, but Sexton's inexperience will be countered by his two previous tours as a player and the fact that he was all but a player/coach for much of his career anyway.

Pull up a chair, heat the popcorn, this show is only starting.