Ireland need to replace Jonathan Sexton as their primary playmaker before the 2023 World Cup.
In an ideal world, that job would have already happened with Sexton reduced to a veteran replacement role for as long as he felt like lacing up those boots at test level. But it is easier said than done. Sexton is a clear generational talent in this country that, through a mixture of misfortunes, finds himself as important to Irish rugby today as he’s ever been.
As ever with Irish rugby, we cannot disentangle the problems of today from the great ascension of the 2000s. For most of the 90s, Ireland were below the level that Italy are perceived to be at now in the grand scheme of World Rugby. The emergence of Ronan O’Gara in the early 2000s coincided with Ireland’s rise from collecting enough Wooden Spoons to build a town of log cabins, to winning a Grand Slam in 2009 with multiple Triple Crowns and near misses along the way.
None of that happens without O’Gara, in my opinion. Sexton might be the more complete player – as we would expect for a newer generation athlete – but when it comes to importance, O’Gara cannot be touched for helping Ireland to go from the relative doldrums to where we are now, where a certain level of success is expected as commonplace.
During most of the 2000s, it was hard to imagine what Ireland would look like at #10 without Ronan O’Gara. 2009 was Sexton’s year to ascend but he was not a guy that was floating around the radar as being a potential O’Gara replacement literally until the end of 2008/2009. Sexton made fleeting appearances for Leinster in Europe during 2007/2008 and only ascended as a key starter for Leinster after Contempomi’s injury in 2008/2009. A good job he did, because that season saw Sexton become a key component for Ireland thereafter. He had a senior debut later that year and the rest is history.
Ireland had their successor to O’Gara at long last and while it was far from a smooth transition – both men went back and forth, even to the point of considering Sexton as a playmaking #12 at one point as we headed to the 2011 World Cup.
By 2012, however, Ronan O’Gara spent the majority of his 35th year as a replacement at test level for Sexton and an emerging Paddy Jackson before ultimately getting shuffled off the stage in 2013. Very few rugby players get to choose their own ending, especially in the kill or be killed world of the flyhalf at test level. Time moves so quickly in that position that you can be a crafty veteran pulling the strings one week and a washed-up relic the next. The key is to pick your moment to step away at the right time and not everyone gets to make that choice for themselves. Maybe it’s impossible for a top-end sportsperson to make that call.
O’Gara was moved down the chart at Ireland level quite dramatically in 2012 after the Rugby World Cup. He didn’t like it, you wouldn’t expect a guy with that level of self-belief to like it, but it was the right call in hindsight. Sexton was clearly the ascending man at the time and Paddy Jackson was worth investing in at that point as a pipeline player to keep the chains of succession going. O’Gara was dropped in 2013 ahead of the France game midway through the Six Nations and that was that. He retired fully from the game a few months later. It hurts, there were some hard feelings at the time, but that’s rugby, that’s sport.
It’s how it’s meant to go.
Normally, anyway.
Fast forward to 2021 and a 36-year-old Johnny Sexton is no closer to moving down the chart as he was in 2012. 29-year-old Paddy Jackson, the guy who Ireland had charted to be the alternative senior guy for Sexton at this point, blew up his career as a test player for Ireland through his own off-field actions.
Joey Carbery, the player who emerged as a potential Sexton replacement in 2016 to the point that he moved to Munster in 2018 to establish his credentials as a starting #10, has spent the last few years of his career injured or recovering from injuries.
We are no closer to certainty about who replaces Sexton today as we were after the 2015 World Cup or the 2019 World Cup.
There is a school of thought out there that says any number of players should be auditioned in that role between now and 2023. Billy Burns, Ian Madigan, Ross Byrne, Jack Carty even young players like Harry Byrne and Ben Healy have been thrown in with the previously mentioned Joey Carbery, who looked like the next Guy in 2018.
I don’t agree with this idea. The next Guy has to be the Next Guy, if that makes sense. It’s too important a role to be mixed and matched between different auditionees, in my opinion. Jack Carty is playing well for Connacht right now but have we seen higher-level performance in him to warrant an investment in minutes? Billy Burns has looked OK as a stand-in player, but enough to warrant starting knowing that minutes we give him won’t go to other players? You could say the same for Ross Byrne. Harry Byrne, the youngest guy there, is worth having a look against Japan but with an idea to showing real progression to warrant minutes ahead of Carbery.
We know Sexton can do it, but the question is; for how long? He’s still absolutely flying it right now at 36 years of age and doesn’t look like a guy slowing up but we know that, at this age, that’s exactly how you look until you don’t. Replacing a generational talent in the twilight of their career is a necessity, but it’s the trickiest job there is when it comes to your primary playmaker and captain. That said, the only thing worse than replacing the Guy is investing too much time in the Wrong Guy.
The clock is ticking, one way or the other.
