Johnny Sexton: ‘My wife and mum tell me to relax and be happy but I can’t do that’

Last week, Johnny Sexton played for Racing Metro in their European Champions Cup game against Treviso in Italy, flew back to Paris that night, flew to Dublin on Monday, trained with the Irish squad on Tuesday and Wednesday, flew back to Paris that night, trained with Racing on Thursday and Friday, and then played, as agreed, for the first 40 minutes at home to Oyonnax on the Saturday. Any wonder he tweaked a hammy?

That’s two matches, four flights, two coach treks and four training sessions in a seven-day period. If ever there was a week to highlight the benefits of returning home to play with Leinster and be part of the Irish system, last week was it. Even a French-based player in the Rugby Championship will at least travel home for a block of several months as opposed to incessantly to-ing and fro-ing.

Returning to Leinster on a four-year deal should benefit player, province and nation alike. He’s not finished with Racing yet and having played 14 straight games has enjoyed his time there more since the Six Nations.

“I was happy to come back with my home team, the team I’ve supported, the team I’ve always wanted to play for since I was a kid. So I’m happy out. I’ve had a great experience,” said Sexton, earlier in the week at the squad’s Carton House base.

He was in relaxed form and unconcerned about his tweaked hamstring.

“I’ve played in the Top 14 quarter-finals and semi-finals, and hopefully this year win the Bouclier [Bouclier de Brennus, awarded to the winners of the French domestic league]. It would be great for the club, and I’ve got a really great relationship with everyone in the club, the president, the coaches, the players and the staff. I’ll be sad to leave. I’ve made some great friends.”

Same fluency

Uppermost amongst these would be Dan Lydiate, who is heading back to Wales after the November Tests. “It could be a different place now he’s gone,” says Sexton.

The outhalf admits it’s easier to build up friendships with English-speaking players and that with French players “there’s not that same fluency of conversation”.

It helps that he understands everything that is being said to him now, but there were a few “mess-ups” early on, as when the coaches spoke to him about ‘occupation’.

"There's a verb s'occuper, which is 'to mind'. I thought it meant to hold the ball but it meant to play territory. A word like that can throw you off. They call them the faux amis, the false friends. It means the direct opposite to what you think. So we were playing a game at home to Bordeaux and at half-time I was told 'occupation'. So I thought 'they want me to hold the ball. Brilliant.' I was running everything, trying to hold the ball, and they were pulling their hair out on the sidelines, shouting and screaming at me, and I was saying 'what?'."

In any event, he and Laura will always have Paris, although Ronan O’Gara has said that the suburbs in which Racing’s training facilities are based, and where most of the squad live, in Le Plessis-Robinson in the south of Paris, could be anywhere in the world. It’s not really Paris per se.

“No, but we can dip in and out of it,” notes Sexton. “Where we are is nice and quiet. You could be anywhere. You could be in Manchester. Obviously the facilities are fantastic. You find your little places around where you like to go with the locals, for shopping, eating or coffee, and then when you want to go into the hustle and bustle of Paris, it’s 10 or 15 minutes away if you choose the right time to go. I’d prefer to do it that way than live in Paris and have to come out for training.” That’s what Jamie Roberts does. “That suits him. I’ve a wife and kid (Luca),” says Sexton smiling.

Unsurprisingly, the advent of parenthood for Laura and himself was a major factor in him coming home. “I’ve missed a lot of things about home in terms of rugby and life stuff, and then obviously when you have a kid it’s going to be easier when you’re living at home. You’ve got your family networks there, and also you want your kid to know your family, and vice versa.

“That was a big reason and there were other rugby reasons. There was me wanting to fulfil my potential and I feel the best place to do that is at Leinster. Look, I could give you 10 reasons why I wanted to come back, and also what I said when I left last year if the union come to me with the best deal I’m going to come home, and I didn’t want that to be just words.”

Sexton could have earned considerably more money by staying put. "Obviously there's been stuff in the press, about top-ups, but it was more a case of Leinster getting in touch with a few companies who might have come directly to me anyway and they put a package together. But I'm very happy with the deal the union put on the table. From a commercial point of view there's probably going to be more opportunities for me in Ireland, so it evens itself to a certain extent, but the talk of 'top-ups' annoys me, as if it's just a financially driven decision."

Modest earner

But as an outhalf with his pedigree and qualities, Sexton should be the best-paid rugby player in Ireland, all the more so as he was a comparatively modest earner until his mid-20s. “But at the same time you don’t want to be seen as a mercenary,” he responds. “I think I’d be far from that.”

Since his breakthrough after Felipe Contepomi’s injury in the 2009 Heineken Cup semi-final against Munster, Sexton has been part of three Heineken Cup winning teams, a Challenge Cup, a Pro12 title, a Lions Test series win and a Six Nations win. Yet it comes as no surprise to learn that it often requires others to remind him of the things he has already achieved.

“For me especially, I forget at times to look back and see what I have achieved. Often I’m very like ‘the next thing’. I suppose the family, and more the females in my life, my wife and mum, say ‘Johnny you need to relax and just look back and be happy.’ I go ‘no, I can’t do that’. But at times you forget that, and sometimes you need to remind yourself that when you have lows, or when you’re being criticised for certain things, you can look back and reflect on what you have done. A lot of the time people who are criticising forget about that as well. Sitting here right now, I’m happy with what I’ve achieved but I want to keep going, and keep improving as a player.”

Sexton has looked back on the Irish team that led the Springboks 12-3 at half-time two years ago before losing 16-12 in a game they should have won, and notes that they were without Brian O'Driscoll, Paul O'Connell, Rory Best and Rob Kearney. "We made a couple of mistakes at the start of the second half and next thing you know we're 16-12 down with 20 minutes to go before we got back in the game. And then we said: 'If only we didn't do this or do that'. And the same against the All Blacks.

“So if we can get all our stuff right and we can sit there on Monday morning without saying those things, we’ll be happy, even if we lose. I think if we do that, we’re going to be in with a great chance.”

He adds: “There’s always going to be injuries at certain times, and come the World Cup we could have four or five down for one game, and we need to be able to cope without them.”

And what gives Sexton hope today and for the next while, of course, is his belief in the ways and methods of Joe Schmidt.

Maybe it’s just coincidence seeing them together having coffee in various cafes or beside each other at the Women’s World Cup, but such is the strength of their coach-player relationship that they appear to share an almost surrogate father-son relationship.

Four trophies

“This is going into our fifth season working together. He’s won a lot and we’ve won a lot, the four trophies with Leinster and one with Ireland, and six finals with Leinster. But it’s not just trophies. It helps that the outhalf and the coach have a good relationship, and it’s funny because you end up having his voice in your head, and he thinks a lot different about the game to a lot of people. I don’t know how to give the best example. But if there’s a four-on-three or four-on-two, you go where the space is. I suppose it’s an easy game when you try to view it in his voice. If you go to the space, he’ll back you. If there’s a mistake out wide, then he’ll blame them. He’s not going to blame me for going there.

“So there’s a certain comfort in knowing that as an outhalf. You don’t want to be second-guessing yourself: ‘Should I kick this or should I run it?’

“I would say he’s the best around, so we’re very lucky to have him. If he was coaching France in the Six Nations last year, they might have won it. If he was coaching England, they might have won it, so we’re lucky and hopefully he’ll be around for four or five more years.”

Sexton smiles at the thought of Schmidt only extending his contract once, and says: “Maybe eight more years.”