FEW THINGS DEFINE people like their family. Johnny Sexton is no different.
We all probably thought we knew Sexton’s story. The early rugby promise in St Mary’s, the frustration of his initial years with Leinster, then the explosion of success in blue, the battles with Ronan O’Gara, the glory under Joe Schmidt and Andy Farrell, the sheer relentless competitiveness.
When you extend your playing career to the age of 38, there has been lots of time for interviews and insights, detailed profiles and features. Your life becomes public property in many ways.
But in a pleasing contrast to the countless offensively boring sports autobiographies that hog space in bookshops these days, Johnny Sexton’s ‘Obsessed’ is revealing and full of fresh insights and surprises.
Sexton and his ghostwriter, Peter O’Reilly, started work on this book back in 2017 and as the latter says in his acknowledgements, it took longer than expected “simply because his career kept extending so impressively.”
Sexton acknowledges that he “didn’t always enjoy getting coaxed into the difficult conversations” that have led to this superb autobiography but readers can thank O’Reilly for exactly that.
The revelations about family life are among the most fascinating aspects. Like many young boys, Sexton has always craved the approval of his father, Jerry. Overhearing his dad telling friends that Johnny was skillful but small and to look out for Mark, Johnny’s younger brother, drove him to become the scrapper we all saw on the pitch.
Even after he had been named World Rugby player of the year and won huge trophies, positive words from his father were of most value to Sexton’s self-esteem. The fondness Sexton has for his grandparents is heartwarming, with tales of long summer weeks spent in Listowel, County Kerry, before all the fame and pressure.
Sexton has regrets about his teenage years, particularly how harshly he sometimes spoke to his mother, Clare, who would be driven to tears.
The most emotional moments in this book involve Sexton’s own kids. His son, Luca, surprises him ahead of his 100th Ireland cap, weeks of planning between the IRFU and his family going into a moment that left Sexton overcome.
Luca finds the right words just after Ireland are knocked out of the 2023 World Cup, telling him, “You’re still the best, Dad” while daughter Amy puts things in perspective the next morning on FaceTime when she says, “We’re sad you lost but we’re happy that we’re doing to see you tomorrow, Daddy.”
There is sadness in the family stories, never more strongly than when Sexton recounts how his parents grew apart and eventually divorced. This happened around the time he was considering a move to Racing 92 and Sexton says that avoiding being around to deal with all the emotional turmoil involved was one of the reasons he opted to go to France.
Sexton’s own marriage is central throughout the book. He met his now wife, Laura, at the age of 10 and she has been his confidante ever since, a pillar of support who has clearly pushed him to be more empathetic. We also get a sense of the plight of the rugby player’s partner. Just after Amy is born, the rugby-mad nurse in the hospital is fretting over Sexton, giving him a hot-water bottle for his shoulder injury with a Six Nations game coming up soon.
Growing up with two younger brothers, Mark and Jerry Jr, helped Sexton to become the utterly competitive character he is. And he is relentless in his competitiveness.
Right from the beginning, Sexton was at war with someone. It was often himself. It’s jarring to hear how the mental strength he came to be praised for wasn’t always reflected in Sexton’s thoughts about himself.
“When I look back, I realize that for the majority of my career, probably up until the Andy Farrell era really, it usually felt like a battle.”
Reading into the Andy Farrell era of the book, even that doesn’t seem entirely accurate. Right until the end, there were battles. Whether that was working to keep his 2023 World Cup dream alive after being charged with misconduct for his behaviour immediately after the Champions Cup final or the now-famous exchange of words with Reiko Ioane, Sexton always seems to have felt he was in a fight.
That disciplinary case felt like “a witch hunt” to Sexton from the start. He “couldn’t help but notice how much coverage the case was getting in the South African media,” even if the referee involved, Jaco Peyper, was South African.
That case is instructive because Sexton can see how he should have acted differently and is apologetic, yet still fights his corner. This tends to be the way.
He acknowledges faults in his behaviour but often settles on the fact that he was just being himself. Conflict isn’t necessarily a bad thing in Sexton’s eyes and he says it “often created energy that produced positive results.”
And there are many, many instances of conflict. A big fistfight with a team-mate during his time at Racing 92, squaring up to Brian O’Driscoll, fallouts with Leo Cullen and Guy Easterby when he first returned to Leinster from France, the list goes on.
Sexton is damning about the Leinster set-up upon his homecoming from Racing.
“The Leinster I’d returned to was a mess. A complete shit-show. I couldn’t believe how badly things had deteriorated in two years and, worryingly, I could see no sign of them being fixed in the short term.”
His relationship with Cullen became strained and it was the arrival of Stuart Lancaster that ended Sexton’s thoughts of looking to leave Leinster for a second time. His admiration for Lancaster, Schmidt, and Farrell is deep.
There are more minor grievances along the way. Sexton’s reviews of Wayne Barnes’ refereeing are not positive. He wasn’t impressed with Joey Carbery’s move to Munster after “he had told us he was staying” in Leinster. His love/hate relationship with Michael Cheika usually revolved around the latter feeling. Sexton persistently says he didn’t look at stuff in the media but what got in pissed him off.
But there are also lots of instances of Sexton’s dry humour, something his harshest critics often missed.
Injuries are an unfortunate reality for any rugby player and it’s interesting to hear how he was carrying issues even at times when no one in the public was aware. He had to deal with migraines throughout his career, with ‘migraine auras’ causing his vision to become distorted, not ideal when lining up shots at goal.
Coming away from this book, it’s clear that Sexton is truly obsessed with rugby and, most of all, winning. But you don’t leave with the impression that he is completely self-obsessed. Sexton argues regularly that those actions that people frowned upon were sparked purely by his desire for the team to win.
He ends the book by concluding that you make sense of your career by counting your blessings and finding new distractions. “And then you move on.”
And yet, though he resisted the IRFU and Leinster’s initial attempts to coax him into coaching, you’re left wondering whether Sexton will be able to stay away from the game for long.
