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Mary Hannigan: Johnny Sexton a ‘very lucky man’ not to have landed longer suspension

Stuart McCloskey is determined to earn a spot on the plane to France, while Cork’s Sorcha McCartan benefits from a move down south

Owen Doyle believes that Johnny Sexton - here training with the Irish squad - may have been lucky to get away with the lenient suspension he received. Photograph: Ben Brady/Inpho

Mary Hannigan's face
Mary Hannigan
Tue Aug 8 2023 - 10:20

How fortunate was Johnny Sexton to have only been given a three match ban after being found guilty of “confrontational, aggressive and disrespectful” behaviour towards officials following May’s Champions Cup final? Exceedingly so, reckons Owen Doyle after he pored over the details of the disciplinary committee’s 36 page judgment.

It was, Owen writes, “a light-touch sentence” considering the “damning” findings against Sexton, his suspension falling “far short of what was necessary to meet the seriousness of the misconduct and to send out the correct deterrent signal to all levels of the game”. He is, then, “a very lucky man”.

While the captain must sit out Ireland’s build-up to the World Cup, Stuart McCloskey is in the thick of it, battling to make Andy Farrell’s 31-man squad. Gerry Thornley spoke with the Ulsterman after Saturday’s 33-17 win over Italy, in which he made his seventh start in nine tests. But if Farrell opts for 19 forwards and 14 backs in his squad, he could be “the unluckiest Irish player to miss out”.

For another Down native, it was a magical weekend, Sorcha McCartan becoming the first camogie player from Ulster to win a senior All-Ireland medal since 1979 – but she did so in the colours of Cork. Gordon Manning talks to McCartan who switched allegiances after moving south for study and work reasons.

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Yet another Star of the County Down, Rory McIlroy, starts his chase this week for the “pot of gold” that awaits the winner of the PGA Tour’s playoffs, $18 million to be exact. McIlroy and Séamus Power are the only Irish players to have made it in to the three-tournament playoffs which, Phil Reid explains, start this week with the St Jude Classic in Memphis.

Down Under, co-hosts Australia and European champions England both advanced to the quarter-finals of the World Cup on Monday, although with their 2-0 win over Denmark, the Australians did so with considerably greater ease. England, reduced to 10 players after Lauren James got herself sent off, needed penalties to get past Nigeria. In Suzanne Wrack’s view, they were as fortunate as, well, Johnny Sexton with that three match ban: “Outplayed, outclassed but somehow, somehow, not out.”

Telly watch: France and Morocco square up in the last of the round of 16 games at the World Cup (RTE2 and BBC1, kick-off 12.0) – it’s 5 v 72 in the world rankings, so it should be a cricket score for the French. But there’ve been so many upsets in this tournament, you’d just never know. Cycling fans, meanwhile, will be glued to Eurosport (12.25-9.30) and BBC 2 (5.30-7.00) for the latest action from the World Championships.