'We deal with it and move on' says O'Brien on Sexton ban

SEXTON BAN: Jimmy O'Brien said he heard at training about Johnny Sexton's ban and that the team just have to deal with it and move on.  Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

If Johnny Sexton’s three-month ban was met with any collective sentiment here in Ireland then it was relief.

Missing three World Cup warm-ups on account of the lip he gave Jaco Peyper after Leinster’s Heineken Champions Cup final loss in May certainly can’t count as ideal but everyone knows it could have been far worse.

Sexton turned 38 this month but his importance to the national team remains timeless as Andy Farrell plots a route through a difficult pool and beyond the quarter-final stage for what would be the first time in Ireland’s history.

The long-running uncertainty over Sexton’s disciplinary situation had cast a shadow over preparations - on the outside at least - but Jimmy O’Brien would have us believe that the skipper’s fate wasn’t exactly keeping colleagues awake at night.

“I don't know if it was a relief,” said the Leinster and Ireland back of the recent EPCR decision. “I didn't even know when it was announced. I came in and the lads said it. You're kind of in a bubble and it keeps going.

“He got the ban and then it's just like, 'what's the next thing? We're going training'. Nobody is relieved, I don't think it's the right word. We just deal with it and move on.” 

If there’s a plus side to this then it is in the fact that Sexton, barring some freak injury in training or elsewhere, will be fit and fresh for Ireland’s tournament opener against Romania in Bordeaux in early September.

Injured since the Six Nations game against England at the end of March, he will be over five months removed from competitive fare by the time that game dawns with the Eastern Europeans but his influence doesn’t sit in cold storage.

The veteran’s influence on all aspects of the team, on and off the field, is legendary by now and there is no doubt but that he will be part of the brains trust even as Jack Crowley and Ross Byrne avail of the extra minutes in his absence.

“He lets whoever is captain do the role but he'll definitely be involved,” said O’Brien. “He's so experienced and so good you want him to be involved. He'll definitely help out and it's training as usual at the moment.” 

For O’Brien the focus will inevitably lie on what he has to do himself to make the squad of 33 that Farrell chooses for this latest crack at the World Cup and it won’t be his first close-up experience of the global tournament if he gets the nod.

The 26-year old was only just finished school when he took in the 2015 quarter-final between the All Blacks and France in Cardiff. Will Connors, his Leinster teammate and a long-time friend, was there as well with his own family.

Connors has nine Test caps to his name but injuries and competition for places have seen him drop away from the senior Ireland squad. O’Brien is a few caps behind but brings a versatility that will make him very difficult to leave out for this tournament.

They’re well over a month into pre-season already. The first of those three warm-ups, against Italy at the Aviva Stadium, is just over a fortnight away and O’Brien is not about to complicate what it is he needs to do in the coming weeks.

“Just getting an opportunity to show what I can do on the pitch. Hopefully I get a chance to play in a few of them. There are so many good players I'm sure everyone will be the same and they'll all get a chance. Whenever I play, hopefully I play well and put my hand up.”