In declaring that Johnny Sexton and Rob Kearney both trained fully yesterday and will be fit to play against France this Saturday – and ditto Rory Best, Peter O'Mahony, Conor Murray and Andrew Trimble – Ireland's kicking coach Richie Murphy said Sexton's inclusion in the starting line-up ahead of Jackson was still a matter for selection.
“No one has a divine right to a starting place,” he said, which is true. However, there’s little doubt that Sexton will now start, not least, as Murphy also outlined, because of the experience he brings.
"Yeah, he's been there, he's seen it all," said Murphy at the squad's Carton House base. "He was a Lions winning outhalf, he's won three Heineken Cups, he's won a couple of Six Nations, so that experience is invaluable for a player.
“Paddy’s still only 24. Numbers-wise they’d add up pretty well, but it’s the bits in between. What makes a really good player? Is it what you see or other areas as well? It’s probably the case that ‘what you see’ is very similar, it’s probably that Paddy is still trying to learn and get better – which he is – at the bits you can’t see.
“It’s communication, the reading of the game, the understanding that at one particular moment of the game what’s the right decision to make.
“And that decision could be based on many different reasons; it could be the conditions, the time of the game, what one defender is going to do different to another. It’s very hard to put your finger on exactly what it is, but Johnny’s just been in a position where he understands these things a little better than Paddy at the moment, but the gap is closing.”
Hamstring problem
Sexton has started only two games for Ireland this season, the Tests against New Zealand in which he departed after 59 and 18 minutes due to a hamstring problem. He has started seven games for Leinster, completing 80 minutes just once, and the last of them almost five weeks ago against Castres.
Yet, as Murphy said, Sexton looked as sharp as ever when on the pitch. “I think Johnny’s in a very comfortable position within himself. He knows there’s pressure on him to get out there and play, but when he’s out there, he’s very calm, controlled, communicating really well with guys around him. He’s able to pick the right option at the right time, and that’s the key – that’s the key to the best outhalves out there.”
Sexton received a few cheap shots in the corresponding fixture in Paris last year, but despite Jaco Peyper’s leniency, Murphy said marshalling the game was a matter for the officials.
“We’re going in to play a game to try and win a Test match to keep our hopes alive in the Six Nations. Our focus is very much on ourselves and how we do things, and we are not really worrying about what France are going to do. It’s up to the referee and his team to sort that out.”
The Irish coaching staff's trust in the officials is assuredly helped by the knowledge that Nigel Owens will be the referee on Saturday.
“I think he enjoys the better part of the game, which is a fast-flowing, tense game in which the physicality is on the right side of it. Nigel, I’m sure, will look after that side of it and whatever comes up,” Murphy said.
Offloading game
That 10-9 defeat in the Stade de France still rankles as the one that got away last season. Ireland will assuredly play better, but so too, most probably, will a more rested French side, whom Murphy said were placing a greater emphasis on keeping the ball off the ground with their offloading game.
“I think they are actually quite a bit better than the team which beat us last year. When we look back to that game, we don’t actually feel that we played very well. But yeah, there’s threats throughout their team,” said Murphy, citing centres Rémi Lamerat and Gaël Fickou.
“They can play through the middle, they can play around you, so we have to make sure our defence is really keyed up to try and come forward and put pressure on them, because if you give them time and space they’ll cause us a lot of trouble.”
This, he said, also applied to Camille Lopez. Murphy, a left-footed outhalf himself in his playing days, said: "When he's got time and space, he's really good, but like all outhalves when you're put under pressure it makes it a lot more difficult, so we'll be trying to take that time and space off him, which will hopefully close down some of the options that he has.
“Is he a good player? I think he’s doing very well. He isn’t the first-choice goal-kicker, for instance, in Clermont, but he’s stepped into the international arena and done that particularly well for them.”
Against Scotland, Lopez landed six from seven, and for the 18-phase try instigated by a swift series of offloads and tip-on passes from turnover ball and finished by Fickou, Lopez had nine involvements.
So it is the apparent involvement of Sexton which will give Ireland most encouragement.
