ALL NINETEEN OF Ireland’s points came from Jonathan Sexton at the Aviva Stadium this evening and new head coach Andy Farrell was left to laud the mettle of his captain.
Sexton’s last match before today’s 19-12 Six Nations win over Scotland was the Champions Cup clash away to Northampton in early December, when he suffered an MCL injury.
It was an injury that heavily curtailed his ability to train until the second half of last week. And Farrell moved to highlight that fact in his post-match press conference.
“He hadn’t done any team training whatsoever, any rugby training whatsoever until we touched down in Portugal,” interjected Farrell after Sexton had lamented some of his own errors in the tetchy win.
“For him not to touch a ball, and not to fight in anger until Thursday of this week, that says it all about the man.
To have the pressure of doing something (captaining Ireland) that he has passionately wanted to do and all the new bits that come around that. And then deal with coming back from such an injury an leading the side like that. Hat’s off to Johnny that’s a magnificent effort.”
Sexton scored the only try of the game through a clinical move off a Conor Murray pass beyond a dummy runner and added four penalties from five attempts to ensure Ireland continually kept their nose ahead of a rejuvenated Scottish side.
“I felt good,” said the new Ireland captain.
“Obviously rusty. It’s tough when you’re in a brace for three weeks, you can’t do anything. Then for three weeks I worked my socks off trying to get fit for Portugal.
“I didn’t train that well at the end of last week, start of his week.”
The playmaker added: “Just delighted to get the win. First game of this tournament is all about winning.
Last year, the England game here was Triple Crown gone, Grand Slam gone and you’re in a battle to chase the Championship. We’re alive in everything and that’s where you want to be.
“We knew it was going to be tough. it’s always difficult to come together and ahve a perfect game.
“I thought we saw glimpses of what we could do and some of the ideas that we had. But we couldn’t get two scores clear. We had chances to do it. If you can go two scores clear it allows you to open up and really try to get that next score. When it’s four points, seven points it’s an arm wrestle and you have to keep playing in the right areas.”
Sexton delivered in fairness he was very good but Murray may go gone very slow..
@Declan Breen: Murray’s last start in this 6 nations… I’d have Cooney & McGrath
@BMJF: would love if Murray kinsela could do an article on moving the ball from the ruck. Think it would show up a lot of unnecessarily biased commentators how wrong they are. Murray was excellent today and I thought cooney was poor when he came on, didn’t move the ball quickly and kicked very poorly
@guineon: Obviously we didn’t watch the same match. Murray was food in fairness for the first quarter and helped her is the try. He then went downhill from there. Giving away penalties and inaccurate passing.
Cooney played well when he came on, he just didn’t get much game time to show his skills. Some nice kicks that put Scotland under pressure when it was needed.
Lastly, Scotland turned up and planned to take that game and almost did. We need to be vigilant next week as our response yesterday won’t work against Wales.
@guineon: I don’t want to bash Murray as I am a fan but he was not excellent yesterday. His box kicks were poor, many of his passes were over head high and when we had then under serious pressure almost on their own line, they were setting up to kick to touch and give us ball in great field position he gave away a seriously needless penalty. He was decent yesterday and done plenty of good things but wasn’t excellent by any standard.
@guineon: Agree with you about an analysis article but Murray was awful yesterday. He received the kickoff & missed touch. All his box kicks were too long. He was ponderous at the ruck. Very slow & inaccurate passing. The only reason he didn’t stick out more was a collective malaise by the team. It’s hard to fathom how far this team are off their best since 2018. I can’t see how we can do better than 4th this year. No scrum, no maul, good line out. If Finn Russell has been there, the Scots would have won. A lucky win covers a multitude of problems.
@David Supple: maybe they’ve only had 10 days with a new coach. Simple fact is it’s not the same team as 2018. None of the players are the same as they were in 2018 either.
@Con Cussed: He conceded one penalty. How many of his passes were inaccurate? He threw one loose pass. His distribution was quick and crisp. That was acknowledged by Andy Farrell and ex-internationals, Ronan O’Gara, Shane Horgan and Shane Jennings.
A scrum-half needs his pack on the front foot to make an impact. That was not the case with the Ireland forwards.
@David Supple: Wasnt the only one to miss touch !
Well done all. Our Captain is often knocked, yet always produces. His own biggest critic, when not at his best. Just like most of our more experienced players. Bring on Wales. Great start Mr Farrell et al.
Sexton did very well but he can’t do it all on his own
It was a good game, hard fought, and well won. Scotland finally had some edge, which was good to see. Hamish Watson should have been man of the match. Murray was the only Irish player to under perform.
@JoyMonkey: Healy was the worst player on the field by a mile
@Tim Magner: healy got penalised in the scrum a couple of time and didn’t have a great game. Worst player on the field I’m not sure about that. .
@Tim Magner: Jack McGrath showing some serious form at Ulster. With Kilcoyne now out he may have a big part to play.
Can’t see there being much changes for next weeks game only enforced ones. People saying Murray was poor need to learn more about rugby. I honestly think that they didn’t play that bad. Scotland set out to totally disrupt Ireland and did a great job at it too. A lot of people have totally unrealistic expectations of Ireland since they beat New Zealand. This is cup rugby those were test games two totally different animals
@Jim Lynch: …id take winning and not playing great over losing with the good auld pat on the back ‘but ye played well’ anytime
@Jim Lynch: How can you say Murray was not poor? That’s just sticking your head in the sand & ignoring the evidence. He was awful & did not justify starting that game. Fair play to CJ & JVdF who gave it everything but we looked clueless out there, like we didn’t know what to do. We ran when we should have kicked straight into brick walls. We were flat & not deep enough when we did run and got clobbered behind the gain line just like 2019. Some bizarre reffing didn’t help either. Our scrum was in trouble all day. Couldn’t get the maul going. At least the line out worked. A lucky win but room for vast improvement.
@David Supple: funny that our only try came from being flatrather than deep.
@David Supple: because I think that he wasn’t poor. I thought he controlled things well to be fair. One bad kick and an interception that could happen to anyone. Look as I said people have totally unrealistic expectations of this team, we are playing within our means and people have to ‘take their heads out of the sand for that’. Too much hype, give them time to change things up
@Dave O Keeffe: If the attack on display was representative of what to expect for the rest of the 6 nations. A comparison with Super Rugby will easily show how out of date the Irish attack is.
@Christiaan Theron: the new coaching team have had two weeks and it’s a seeding year. Not the time to rip everything apart on day 1. Get through this year, win as many games as possible then next year start building for 2023
Missed his customary kickable penalty. Ireland needs fresh ideas at 9 and 10
@Dan: I’m a critic of Sexton at times but he played really well yesterday. We all make mistakes. We just weren’t prepared for a strong Scottish side.
@Dan: Murray needs to be on the bench for the next game!
@Con Cussed: he played really well and it looked as if he has evolved as a captain. Only thing is there were one or two things in the first half that he could have been a little bit more vocal about. But a very, very good performance from him.
@Dan: Usual miss 10 metres right of the posts !
What I really liked was how he handled himself at times when the ball wasn’t in play. The ref missed a lot yesterday, refused to look at blatant things he missed and seemed more interested in lecturing Irish players at times, even when he was penalising scotland. That’s the type of game frustration could easily bubble over as we have seen happen with Johnny before but he kept a calm head and made his case each time. Some sad people wanted to have a go at Sexton when he was announced as captain over this kind of thing but he showed yesterday how much he’s developed.
@Paddy: he definitely showed that he’s up to the job, no doubt about it. Still think he needs to find the middle ground between where he was and where he is now. One or two occasions he could have made a more forceful suggestion to the ref but then he would have been slated for that too. He knows the ref better than any of us on here though.
The gulf is so obvious. RB looks a child by comparison and no doubt he the next best.