Opportunity knocks for Jack Crowley as outhalf giants leave the stage

Well then, so it has come to pass. Life after Johnny.

When Ireland take on France in Marseille’s Stade Velodrome on Friday night it will be the first Six Nations without Johnny Sexton since 2009. Brian Cowen was taoiseach, Barack Obama had just been elected US president, and Donald Trump wasn’t even a bad dream.

Sexton has played in every one of the ensuing 14 championships. Only five players have played more games in the Six Nations than his 60, of which all bar four were as the starting Irish No10. He has scored more points (566) than anyone else in championship history, with Ronan O’Gara second on 557. Like the latter, Sexton has been a Six Nations institution. It won’t be the same without him.

But the passing on of the baton doesn’t stop there. Unlike four years ago, when half of the six head coaches in the Six Nations had moved on, this time only Kieran Crowley had been replaced, by Gonzalo Quesada, although by contrast, Michele Lamaro is the only captain still in situ.

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World Cups tend to mark a changing of the guard and nowhere is this more dramatic than at outhalf, where, in addition to Sexton, the Six Nations will also not feature two other standard-bearers of the last three World Cup cycles; Dan Biggar and Owen Farrell.

Biggar has played in every championships for the last 11 years, dating back to 2013, while Farrell has played in all but two of the last dozen Six Nations campaigns, the exceptions being his injury-enforced absences in 2015 and 2022.

Granted, Farrell sometimes played at inside centre, but in the other 10 Six Nations, Farrell started all but two of England’s 50 games, and is the tournament’s fourth highest scorer in history with 528, behind Jonny Wilkinson.

Biggar was an ever-present starter in seven of the last 11 championship campaigns for Wales, and ultimately started as many Six Nations matches, 41, as O’Gara. The only reason he is not among the competition’s all-time leading points scorers is because of the metronomic Leigh Halfpenny.

The 34-year-old Biggar admitted he suffered from a “huge low” after playing his last Test match for Wales in their World Cup quarter-final, and that his ensuing retirement from international rugby “knocked me for six”.

At 32, Farrell is the youngest of the trio, but had already decided to take a break from Test rugby for his own wellbeing before since opting for a break from English rugby altogether by relocating to Racing 92, where Sexton, and indeed Dan Carter and Finn Russell, have also played.

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The trio have established a marked respect, as well as a fierce competitiveness, between each other over the years. One has the distinct impression that Biggar and Sexton, who have been spotted having coffee together, have a particularly warm bond.

This bond between the trio has also been fostered by Lions trips together. Sexton and Farrell were on the 2013 tour before they and Biggar were the three outhalves on the 2017 expedition. And latterly Farrell and Biggar were taken to South Africa in 2021, when Warren Gatland mistakenly chose not to include Sexton.

They are so alike in so many ways. They were the drivers as well as the respective talisman of their teams. All three of them are fierce competitors, which invariably led to spats on the pitch. They repeatedly wore angry and exasperated scowls in matches, not least when berating team-mates. And they were three of the physically bravest, hard-tackling 10s you’re ever likely to see.

They’ll be missed, and more so by Wales and Ireland. Steve Borthwick has still been able to call upon the vastly experienced George Ford, 30 years old and 91 caps, and Marcus Smith, now 24 and who already has 30 caps, as well as the talented 21-year-old Fin Smith of Northampton Saints.

For their part Scotland have Russell, and while still 23 even Italy’s Paolo Garbisi – apparently Toulon-bound – has 31 caps. The Azzurri also have Tommaso Allan (30 and 79 caps) as back-up. Not so Wales, where Gatland has chosen two 22-year-olds, Sam Costelow and Ioan Lloyd, as well as Cai Evans (24), a trio of outhalves who have 11 caps between them.

As for Ireland, Joey Carbery had seemingly been the anointed heir to the throne for six years until he fell out of favour with Andy Farrell before last season’s Six Nations, and the void left by Sexton’s retirement has been compounded by Ross Byrne’s torn bicep.

So it is that Ireland also have three relatively callow outhalves in Jack Crowley (24 and nine caps), Harry Byrne (24 and two caps) and Ciarán Frawley (26 and one cap).

This is in stark contrast to previous successions. When David Humphreys succeeded Eric Elwood at the 1999 World Cup (after which the latter retired) he’d been in the Irish squad for three years, was 27 years old and had started seven Tests.

When Humphreys unexpectedly retired at the end of the 2005-2006 season, O’Gara had been in the squad for seven seasons, was already 27 and had accumulated 47 caps. When O’Gara retired in 2013, Sexton had been in the Irish squad for four seasons, was 27 and had 36 caps, 28 of them as starting 10.

Not so Crowley, the man most likely to fill those sizeable boots and the jersey previously worn by the highest-achieving 10s Irish rugby has ever known.

Crowley is a gifted rugby player, who takes the ball to the line, has become better at doing so with his shoulders square to the opposition. He has footwork, a lovely passing and varied kicking game, as well as some of Sexton’s desire for defending.

He looks like he’s made of the right stuff. Yet, by contrast, he has not been afforded anything like the same exposure and experience they had accumulated before assuming the mantle. Of his nine caps, only three have been as a starting 10, and this is his first Six Nations start, against France in the cauldron of the Stade Velodrome.

Well, no pressure then Jack.