AS IRELAND GATHER ahead of their autumn international fixtures, Andy Farrell and his squad have allowed themselves to look a little further down the line than usual.

The squad met up this morning ahead of a run of three home internationals, staring with the visit of Japan next week, before New Zealand and Argentina make the trip to Dublin later in November.

First and foremost, the ambition is to build some consistency, something which captain Johnny Sexton touched on a number of times during this morning’s virtual media event to launch the Autumn Nations Series.

“I think it’s a big series of games,” Sexton said.

Since Andy’s come in we’ve had some great performances and we’ve had some average performances, so for us it’s about getting that consistency. The level of consistency where you don’t see us going up and down, you see a standard that we want to set with Japan being first up, and then continuing that for the two games subsequently.”

Ireland head into this block of games looking to build on a run of five successive wins, but they are also aware of the bigger picture.

Two years out from the next Rugby World Cup, France 2023 is already very much on their minds.

“That’s on the horizon. We have spoken about that, that we have a two-year bloc ahead of us and how we can go into that tournament in the best place we can be and full of confidence and ready to take on the world,” Sexton continued.

We spoke about that and that bloc starts now. We want to see continuous improvement and consistency that everyone is proud of. The focus is all on Japan now to get off on the best foot possible.”

The out-half admits it’s a different way of thinking, given the squad are used to keeping their focus on the short term. The next week. The next game. The next opponent.

“Well there is a difference already because we’ve mentioned the World Cup two years out. We’ve sort of put it on the radar which we’ve never done before, certainly since I’ve been involved.

“We talked about the World Cup the summer of, and we’ve always been focused on what’s in front of us. And we still are focused on what’s in front of us but I suppose you can see through the group the young fresh faces and the younger generation coming through, and why shouldn’t it be (in our thinking) – it’s the biggest thing you can do in the game and everyone wants to get there and everyone wants to do well in it.

“It’s great to have it there in the back of your mind and it’s something to strive for because if you view it as a journey, there is always that end point that you can strive towards.”

Sexton was asked how that shift in mindset sits with him as captain.

“It’s great. You have to be open-minded enough to do things in different ways. I like it. It’s what other countries do. You can see it in their selections.

“But we have a duty that we want to win games now as well. I think every country has to find that balance. That’s not up to me, it’s up to the coaching staff.”

Sexton also confirmed that he is on track to feature against Japan on Saturday week, having overcome a hip injury sustained in Leinster’s win over Scarlets on 16 October.

“I just had a little niggle in my hip over the last couple of weeks, but good to go.

I trained yesterday, trained two days before that, and yeah, all good. So I’m ready to train tomorrow. 

“We’ve got meetings today, we just met up this morning and I’ll train fully this week and next week and hopefully lead into Japan.”

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