JOHNNY SEXTON FEELS Ireland will have to produce their best performance of the Joe Schmidt era to beat France in Cardiff next Sunday.
Schmidt’s men clash with les Bleus in the Millennium Stadium on Sunday for the chance to avoid New Zealand in the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
The French have impressed only intermittently during their three wins against Italy, Romania and Canada, but Ireland out-half Sexton feels there is much more to come from Philippe Saint-André’s squad.
Sexton was disappointed with Ireland's performance against Italy. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
“We probably do need the best performance of Joe’s time to win this weekend,” said Sexton at Ireland’s team hotel in Canary Wharf this morning.
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“When it comes to a World Cup it’s almost like they build for this, it’s like they use players through the Six Nations year on year to have a big playing pool for the World Cup.
“And you can see from their previous results, how many semi-finals and finals they’ve been in. Arguably they should have won the last World Cup and they were in turmoil in the group stages.
“So we’ve got to be aware of all these things and realise them but at the same time we know we’ve got to concentrate on ourselves because if we get our performance right we can be a good team.”
Ireland delivered a poor display in victory over Italy yesterday, securing their quarter-final place but causing concern with the inaccurate showing. Sexton recognises that his team were far from their best and says much more is needed.
We’re pretty disappointed with a lot of aspects of our game. In fairness to Italy they put us under a lot of pressure. We’ve a lot to look at ourselves, we made too many unforced errors.
“We made mistakes in defence too, gave away too many penalties in defence, but we’re where we wanted to be at the start of the tournament. The coaching staff are always pretty hard on us, even through the Six Nations campaigns we won.”
Sexton says Schmidt is likely to pinpoint the ease with which Italy kept the ball and targeted wide channels as one major work-on, while he also questioned Ireland’s decision-making around when and when not to offload.
The out-half said that when Ireland lost Peter O’Mahony to a yellow card, their tactics were largely based around kicking into the Italian 22 and forcing Jacques Brunel’s men to play out from deep.
Sexton is ready for the challenge of taking down Mathieu Bastareaud. Dan Sheridan / INPHO
Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO
Ireland “won ugly,” according to Sexton, although that is unlikely to be enough in Cardiff. The prospect of the likes of Mathieu Bastareaud running down his channel awaits.
“He’s a hard man to stop and I know it better than most!” said Sexton. “I’ve come off second best a couple of times but he sucks in a lot of defenders and he looks like he’s got himself in really good shape.
“It’s the same for all their players, I think they possess power all across their backline and pace to burn as well. So we’ve got to be on top of our game from that point of view, and I’m sure we’ll come up with some kind of plan to help us stop him.
“They said before the last game they were going to come down my channel because I was obviously coming back from a lay-off, and I don’t see it being any different this time.
You always want to target the opposition 10 and I’m sure they’ll go there again. I don’t know if I like the physicality, but it’s part and parcel of the modern game.
“Everyone on the pitch has got to be able to contribute defensively and physically, and it’s not often you see guys that can’t do it anymore. Hopefully I’ll tick that box.
“He’s a guy that we’re going to have to pay close attention to but if we think about him too much then guys like (Wesley) Fofana and (Brice) Dulin will run off him and find those holes, so we’ve got to make sure we’re paying him the respect he deserves.
“They’ve got players across the park that can hurt us so we’ve got to be a hell of a lot better than we were yesterday.”
Sexton feels Ireland need best performance of Schmidt era to beat France
Murray Kinsella reports from London
JOHNNY SEXTON FEELS Ireland will have to produce their best performance of the Joe Schmidt era to beat France in Cardiff next Sunday.
Schmidt’s men clash with les Bleus in the Millennium Stadium on Sunday for the chance to avoid New Zealand in the quarter-finals of the World Cup.
The French have impressed only intermittently during their three wins against Italy, Romania and Canada, but Ireland out-half Sexton feels there is much more to come from Philippe Saint-André’s squad.
“We probably do need the best performance of Joe’s time to win this weekend,” said Sexton at Ireland’s team hotel in Canary Wharf this morning.
“When it comes to a World Cup it’s almost like they build for this, it’s like they use players through the Six Nations year on year to have a big playing pool for the World Cup.
“And you can see from their previous results, how many semi-finals and finals they’ve been in. Arguably they should have won the last World Cup and they were in turmoil in the group stages.
“So we’ve got to be aware of all these things and realise them but at the same time we know we’ve got to concentrate on ourselves because if we get our performance right we can be a good team.”
Ireland delivered a poor display in victory over Italy yesterday, securing their quarter-final place but causing concern with the inaccurate showing. Sexton recognises that his team were far from their best and says much more is needed.
“We made mistakes in defence too, gave away too many penalties in defence, but we’re where we wanted to be at the start of the tournament. The coaching staff are always pretty hard on us, even through the Six Nations campaigns we won.”
Sexton says Schmidt is likely to pinpoint the ease with which Italy kept the ball and targeted wide channels as one major work-on, while he also questioned Ireland’s decision-making around when and when not to offload.
The out-half said that when Ireland lost Peter O’Mahony to a yellow card, their tactics were largely based around kicking into the Italian 22 and forcing Jacques Brunel’s men to play out from deep.
Ireland “won ugly,” according to Sexton, although that is unlikely to be enough in Cardiff. The prospect of the likes of Mathieu Bastareaud running down his channel awaits.
“He’s a hard man to stop and I know it better than most!” said Sexton. “I’ve come off second best a couple of times but he sucks in a lot of defenders and he looks like he’s got himself in really good shape.
“It’s the same for all their players, I think they possess power all across their backline and pace to burn as well. So we’ve got to be on top of our game from that point of view, and I’m sure we’ll come up with some kind of plan to help us stop him.
“They said before the last game they were going to come down my channel because I was obviously coming back from a lay-off, and I don’t see it being any different this time.
“Everyone on the pitch has got to be able to contribute defensively and physically, and it’s not often you see guys that can’t do it anymore. Hopefully I’ll tick that box.
“He’s a guy that we’re going to have to pay close attention to but if we think about him too much then guys like (Wesley) Fofana and (Brice) Dulin will run off him and find those holes, so we’ve got to make sure we’re paying him the respect he deserves.
“They’ve got players across the park that can hurt us so we’ve got to be a hell of a lot better than we were yesterday.”
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