All Blacks intensity made Sexton throw up
Ireland and the All Blacks face each other on November 17th, a match between to top two ranked sides in the world.
Ireland didn't have that lofty status when Johnny Sexton faced New Zealand early in his international career. He came off the bench in a 66-28 defeat to the All Blacks in New Plymouth in the summer of 2010, but it was when he started against the same opposition a few months later, while earning his 10th cap, that he felt the full force.
“I vomited at half-time,” the Leinster outhalf admitted.
“It was just an incredible pace to the game, just every collision was ferocious. Every collision was like the first collision of the game. That was my first time playing against them and it was an eye-opener. Our levels of fitness now and our levels of preparation have gone up a lot since then.
Sexton has victories over the All Blacks under his belt, when Ireland claimed their first ever win in Chicago in 2016 along with a Test success while playing for the British & Irish Lions.
“It’s a great challenge, a lot of us now have beaten them a couple of times and we want to do it again.
“We’ve never beaten them in Ireland, so it would be pretty special to be on the first Irish team to beat them here. As players we need to concentrate on the first couple of games (Italy and Argentina) but at the same time it’s going to be a pretty special occasion.”
Continue reading below...
You may also like: Springbok coach Erasmus looks ahead to November tour
One man who will be trying to mastermind success over New Zealand, is Ireland's Kiwi coach Joe Schmidt. Sexton describes him as "the best around", but his contract runs out at the end of the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
“I think, as players, we hope that he stays, but he’s done an incredible job. I have worked with him since 2010/11 and the success that he has brought to us with Leinster to get to the six finals in three years and then to go and win three [Six Nations] championships; it’s been a special time, a lot of that has been down to him and we have still got more to go.
“We all know the standards that are set. You look at teams that are successful. The All Blacks, they develop standards and then the senior players along with whoever is new, they try and drive the same standards. That’s what we will try and do if he does leave. Whoever takes over, you know, will get with the senior players and say ‘how are we going to do this?’ and we have to make sure that we do that.
Watch: Wallabies captain Michael Hooper looks ahead to All Blacks clash
Latest Comments
Don’t pay a blind bit of notice to Lukie… he likes the sound of his own voice and is always looking for something controversial to say. He has been banging on about Leinster's defensive system all season like he knows something Jacques Nienebar doesn’t. Which is the reason why he didn’t apply for the job obviously
Go to commentsI’m all for speeding up the game. But can we be certain that the slowness of the game contributed to fans walking out? I’m not so sure. Super rugby largely suffered from most fans only being able to, really, follow the games played in their own time zone. So at least a third of the fan base wasn’t engaged at any point in time. As a Saffer following SA teams in the URC - I now watch virtually every European game played on the weekend. In SR, I wouldn’t be bothered to follow the games being played on the other side of the world, at weird hours, if my team wasn’t playing. I now follow the whole tournament and not just the games in my time zone. Second, with New Zealand teams always winning. It’s like formula one. When one team dominates, people lose interest. After COVID, with SA leaving and Australia dipping in form, SR became an even greater one horse race. Thats why I think Japan’s league needs to get in the mix. The international flavor of those teams could make for a great spectacle. But surely if we believe that shaving seconds off lost time events in rugby is going to draw fans back, we should be shown some figures that supports this idea before we draw any major conclusions. Where are the stats that shows these changes have made that sort of impact? We’ve measured down to the average no. Of seconds per game. Where the measurement of the impact on the fanbase? Does a rugby “fan” who lost interest because of ball in play time suddenly have a revived interest because we’ve saved or brought back into play a matter of seconds or a few minutes each game? I doubt it. I don’t thinks it’s even a noticeable difference to be impactful. The 20 min red card idea. Agreed. Let’s give it a go. But I think it’s fairer that the player sent off is substituted and plays no further part in the game as a consequence.
Go to comments