[su_dropcap style=”flat” size=”4″]T[/su_dropcap]here’s no overtaking the dominant team in any given sport without that team dipping, ever so slightly. This has shown to be true in every single transfer of dominance in whatever team sport you’d care to mention – NBA, soccer, hurling – you name the sport, and I can show you a former hegemon that dipped just enough to allow the competition to take over. We know all about that in Munster.
Quite simply, anyone who displaces Leinster in the next two season will have to hope for the same dip and it’s a dip that might never come. I genuinely believe that with a dismantled Saracens, there are very few teams who can touch Leinster right now.
Saracens, in my opinion, had the strongest squad in Europe before their salary cap punishment and their style of play was perfectly suited to that same squad. The Leinster vs Saracens Champions Cup quarter-final would have been quite close but having watched both teams extensively this season, I was leaning towards the result being a re-run of the previous season’s Champions Cup final with a full-strength Saracens having just about too much for Leinster, even with home advantage. I think it would look very similar to recent Ireland vs England games where Billy Vunipola starts but closer on the scoreboard.
That certainly wouldn’t hold true if the game happened in October 2020.
I’d back the current iteration of Saracens to give Leinster a game, certainly, but without Titi Lamositele, Will Skelton, Ben Earl, Alex Goode, George Kruis, Nick Isiekwe, Ben Spencer, Alex Lozowski, Liam Williams and others, I think Leinster would eventually burn through Sarries physically.
If the Champions Cup knockout series from 19/20 is to be played this Autumn, I’m having a hard time seeing who could prevent Leinster from adding a fifth star. Racing 92, Clermont or Toulouse would certainly have elements that could trouble Leinster in a one-off game, but I think both would fall short, at least with how things stand at the time of writing.
In this article, I’ll be looking at the pitfalls lying in wait for Leinster over the next two seasons, and how their navigation of those pitfalls presents an opportunity to their competitors.
To prevent this article from being over 15,000 words long, the Endgame of Derailing The Big East will feature;
- Leinster Pitfalls :: Replacing a Giant
- Leinster Pitfalls 2 :: Depth Trouble, Double-Edged Swords and Attacking the Leinster gameplan
- Munster Foundations 2020
With that in mind, let’s get to the best Leinster player of the last decade.
Sexton’s Gravity
What do you do with a player as totemic to Leinster and Ireland as Jonathan Sexton?
Go back and look at 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2018 and look at the starting 10 in each of those European Cup-winning Leinster sides. It’s Jonathan Sexton. Since his emergence in that 2009 semi-final against Munster, Sexton has been the preeminent player in Leinster and, a short while later, Irish rugby. Even his two-year absence from Leinster was defined by the space he left behind and, rather than invest in Ian Madigan, Leinster & Ireland bet big on tempting him back from Racing.
And rightfully so.
Sexton is the best European born flyhalf of the 2010s, in my opinion. The question is often framed as O’Gara vs Sexton but, in truth, they inhabited wildly different “eras” even though they were in direct competition for three seasons. Ronan O’Gara’s achievements for Ireland are on a completely different planet to Sexton, in that they helped to create the world that Sexton now inhabits.
To put it in context, when O’Gara became a regular feature at test level, Ireland was something akin to Italy when it came to performances in the old Five Nations. Ireland didn’t place above the bottom two in the old Five Nations from 1988 to 1999 and we finished rock bottom for three seasons running between 1996 and 1998. Ireland won eight games total in the Five Nations in the 90s. Ten years later, O’Gara would land the drop goal that won Ireland a Grand Slam.
Ireland’s win over France in Paris is often heralded as the beginning of the Ireland we know today, and certainly the beginning of O’Driscoll’s magical career, but it’s often forgotten that Stringer and Ronan O’Gara were the starting half-backs that day. Ireland’s rise from being perennial wooden spoon collectors to regularly challenging at the top end of the Six Nations and then beating the likes of England, France, South Africa and Australia all happened with O’Gara at the primary 10 so he can never be untangled from the successful Irish rugby universe we inhabit today.
Imagine what kind of #10 would have to emerge in Italy today if they were to follow the same trajectory as Ireland in the 2000s? That’s what we’re talking about when it comes to Ronan O’Gara.
When we talk about the 2010s, however, Sexton stands above everyone in Europe in my opinion.
Farrell only became a complete option in the last few years and Wilkinson was certainly excellent in Toulon but he wasn’t playing test rugby at the time. Sexton’s record at test and club level compares with absolutely anyone during the 2010s and I don’t even think it’s that close, to be honest, and he’s done all that as a key decision-maker and tactical powerhouse.
Sexton will turn 35 in July 2020 but I’m yet to be convinced that his powers are on the wane of the evidence of the last few seasons. Even last year, when himself and Murray shipped more criticism than they ever had, I felt their performances were a result of a malaise in the Irish pack and front five in particular, rather than any spectacular underperformance from Sexton individually.
The key markers of Sexton’s elite game are still intact.
He’s still an excellent passer of the ball on both sides, he’s still an excellent decision-maker, and he’s still a reliable goal-kicker inside his range, which hasn’t shrunk drastically as he’s aged. In that regard, he’s as good – if not better, when it comes to passing and decision making – than he ever was. Has Sexton lost a bit of pace over the years? Sure, but I would posit that his game was never based on having top-end pace. From a defensive perspective, Sexton is still a pretty impactful defender at the edge of the primary defensive line and off the setpiece but, if anything, I think Leinster could probably do with rotating him into the backfield a bit more and reducing his exposure off the lineout. His lack of pace might make him a sub-optimal backfield transition player but I think a balance needs to be found to prevent opposition ball carriers getting too much access to him. Sexton would work perfectly as a kicking option in a central position alongside Larmour, especially in a post-COVID game that could well include a 50/22 rule.
If Sexton manages to avoid catastrophic soft tissue injuries over the next while, I don’t see any reason why he can’t continue to be productive for Leinster for as long he fancies it – which could be a long time, going on his recent pronouncement during the Analytica 2020 conference.
“One good thing for me, at the age I am at, is this has given me a bit of a taste of what retirement might be like.
“I’m reading a book called Play On, which Mick Kearney gave to me, the old Irish team manager who’s back currently, he’s sort of part-time team manager now.
“It’s all about how all the top athletes played on until their late 30s, early 40s and I’m reading it like the Bible at the moment and taking in every bit of it.”
I have no doubt that Sexton could play at a pretty high level for at least another two seasons barring his work falling off a cliff when we eventually come back from lockdown. At his best, Sexton is a sliding quarterback that operates behind a heavy line of interplaying forwards and demands the ball at exactly the right time to make something happen outside him.
There’s a certain amount of separation between the forward and back operations at Leinster and the link between both is almost always Jonathan Sexton. Leinster have used Gary Ringrose/Robbie Henshaw as an occasional second receiver but for the most part, their pattern of play is based on tight forward interplay in central areas of the field and then Sexton taking possession when the opposition defensive line becomes unbalanced.
This phase sequence from last year’s Champions Cup final is a good example of this principle of play.
You see the wide release initially by Sexton with Cronin lurking as a wide supporting forward – that’s been replaced by the likes of Doris/Kelleher/Van Der Flier during the recent season. That’s followed by some nice forward interplay before Sexton demands the ball again to have a backline probe down the tramline. Sexton is the key man in the direction of the play and the arrangement of the attacking assets – as you’d expect.
You can get an exaggerated view of Sexton’s “slide” on this passage of play.
Sexton’s tight line hidden behind a screen of three forwards is almost iconic at this stage but it’s not as big a part of his game as it once was. That isn’t to say Sexton won’t slide off a screen in advanced positions…
… but you’re much more likely to see Sexton stepping back and allowing the forwards to advance the ball in tight pods before demanding the ball when space appears or when play progresses to an edge space.
Watch how Sexton stays at the edge of Leinster’s forward attack lines as the ball progresses across the field on this example;
This is a position where you might well see the likes of, say, Joey Carbery extending behind another pair of hands to bring his pace and agility to the “high edge” of the opposition’s defensive line but this isn’t really Sexton’s game. His strength and durability on the gainline make first receiver his best phase play position by far and that’s where Ireland and Leinster use him most often.
Sexton’s physical presence on the gainline, his passing range off both sides and his tight handling under pressure
But with that comes an element of predictability. A recent article on the 42 quoted a George Ford interview on the Magic Academy where he had the following to say about Ireland’s reliance on Sexton as a playmaker.
“There are teams that are very dominant who play off 10. A team like Ireland is ‘Where’s Sexton? Where’s Sexton?’
“Wherever Sexton is, is where the ball is going.
“I suppose from an attack point of view, it’s interesting that you don’t want to probably be as predictable as that in terms of… you want to have the ability to go either side or either way with different options.”
The same thing could be said to be true of Sexton at Leinster, although perhaps to a slightly lesser extent as Ringrose and Larmour are occasional first receivers. However, I would argue that, at Leinster, the issue of “predictability” once they settle into their phase play, is less of an issue than it is for Ireland at test level.
To even begin to hurt Leinster for predictability with Sexton, you have to consistently match the interplay and physicality of their lead carrying forwards in central positions. Only Saracens and, on occasion, Toulouse have managed that consistently. Racing 92 made a decent fist of it during the 2018 Champions Cup final but, in my opinion, only Saracens have fully exposed that aspect of Leinster’s game.
This is just one example of betting big on Sexton in a defensive situation and it paid off massively for Saracens at a key moment.
Sexton was always getting this ball. It’s just one moment, yes, but it’s illustrative of that knowledge that the ball was only ever going to Sexton in that moment and Kruis could go all-in on his route with decent confidence that he’d be correct.
There are elements of Leinster’s game that I feel can be exploited that I’ll examine in the second part of this article but I’ve illustrated Sexton’s relatively large scale importance to highlight a potential pitfall. The older you get in this game, the finer the line between being productive and being a slow drag on your team’s performance becomes.
While Sexton hasn’t really suffered a precipitous dip in form over the last calendar year since his World Player of the Year award, that doesn’t mean that it won’t or can’t happen. Managing this transition between productive elite veteran and ageing yesterday’s man is going to be tricky for Ireland and Leinster, in particular, if Sexton is looking to play on at an elite level past the next Lions tour. There’s no saying that Sexton plans to stay in Ireland beyond his next contract – he might be eyeing up a return to France or a trip to Japan for all I know – but if he wants to play test rugby, it’ll be at Leinster or it won’t be happening.
If he signs a new deal with Leinster and Ireland to take him beyond the end of 2021, how do you tell Johnny Sexton – the current Leinster and Ireland captain – that you’re moving on from him if you feel he’s not producing for you?
Sexton’s age profile (35 in July) would normally have him listed as a PRIORITY ONE replacement for Leinster and Ireland but if he plays on in the vein of, say, a Dan Carter, then he could have at least another two seasons at the top and maybe a bit more. Carter last played for the All Blacks in 2015 at the age of 33 and went on to have one great season and two below-par ones with Racing 92 before entering semi-retirement in Japan at the age 36.
He’s currently lining out for the Blues in Super Rugby Aotearoa at 38 years of age but it wouldn’t be accurate to say that it’s been plain sailing for Carter in the autumn of his career. Carter’s post-Crusaders career has been pockmarked by injury at Racing 92 – to the point where it stalled his last two seasons at Racing, prevented his return to Racing as a medical joker because of a failed medical and limited his work with the Kobelco Steelers to one season.
Dan Carter isn’t Johnny Sexton – obviously – so tracking one veteran flyhalf’s injury record with another and trying to draw parallels is faulty right out the gate but it would be foolhardy if Ireland and Leinster, in particular, weren’t looking at their options.
What comes after Sexton is going to be of crucial importance to Leinster’s continuing dominance.
The Byrne Ultimatum
The way I see it, Leinster have five possible options when it comes to replacing Jonathan Sexton over the next three seasons;
- Ross Byrne goes from understudy to #1 flyhalf
- Harry Byrne passes out his brother to become the #1 flyhalf
- Ciarán Frawley overtakes both the Byrnes to become the #1 flyhalf
- Joey Carbery returns from Munster to become the #1 flyhalf
- Leinster sign a big name NIQ to become the #1 flyhalf
If you asked me to choose which was more likely in June 2020, I’d rank the possibilities as follows;
- Harry Byrne passes out his brother to become the #1 flyhalf
- Ciarán Frawley overtakes both the Byrnes to become the #1 flyhalf
- Ross Byrne goes from understudy to #1 flyhalf
- Leinster sign a big name NIQ to become the #1 flyhalf
- Joey Carbery returns from Munster in 2022 to become the #1 flyhalf
Ideally, I think Leinster’s succession would come from an in-house talent but wanting something to happen and it actually happening are two very different things, as Munster fans will know when it comes to replacing generational talents at flyhalf. Joey Carbery returning to Leinster post-Sexton is a possibility – especially if their contract terms sync up to the end of 2022 – but I think that if the current young pretenders to Sexton’s spot in Leinster don’t work out at the top-end then Leinster could well have a look at the NIQ market, budget allowing.
Of the three players currently in Leinster’s squad and academy, I think Harry Byrne has the best chance of stepping into Sexton’s shoes, followed by the impressive Ciarán Frawley.
Ross Byrne is a bit of a conundrum for me because, while I think that he’s currently the best Sexton stand-in that Leinster has in their squad, I don’t think he’s got a ceiling any higher than where it currently is – which is of a good player that’s just below top-end test-standard. Ross Byrne allows Leinster to play identically when Sexton is unavailable and that gives excellent continuity for Leo Cullen when he essentially has to manage to distinct squads from week to week during test windows and rest periods.
Ross Byrne has a lot of the same qualities as Sexton – durability on the gainline, decent passing near the gainline, good territorial kicking, reliable goal kicking and decent instincts – but he doesn’t have them to the same level that Sexton does. It’s why Cullen was able to rest/rotate Byrne and Sexton so successfully during the run-in of the 2018 Double winning season. Ross Byrne isn’t as good as Sexton but he gives you a close approximation of the Johnny Sexton Experience in Leinster’s primary system when required.
This line and inside ball at the edge of the forward line is as Sextonesque as it comes.
This 1 ruck loop by Toner is a classic modern-day Leinster phase play strike and it hinges on having a durable, gainline dominant flyhalf linking it all together – the threat of the carry from the handler in traffic at the edge of the line brings the late-running forward into the game with a last-second pass inside. No physical threat in traffic, no line break. Ross Byrne fills this role perfectly.
On the flip side, Ross Byrne’s breaking ability and actual gainline threat in central positions is a fair bit below Sexton’s level and his defending is another significant drop off when compared to Sexton wherever you look to compare – set-piece, backfield and on the edge of the defensive line.
Ross Byrne’s passing eye and execution under pressure is his worst quality for me. This is a decent example of his sub-optimal pass choices.
The pass to make here was the outside ball to Henshaw for a 1-on-1 is a key example of Ross Byrne’s “eye”. It’s not that Sexton (or any other flyhalf, for that matter) is incapable of picking a wrong option every now and then. I could show you a dozen examples of Ross Byrne making a good choice rather than a sub-optimal one, it’s just something that I’ve picked up in his game when I watch his work phase after phase after phase over multiple games at both Champions Cup and PRO14 level.
Here’s an example of his playcalling and execution. At the start of the strike, you can see Byrne signalling the play call to McGrath before stepping in to make the move on penalty advantage.
It’s small little things like this that mark Ross Byrne down for me. He’s far from a poor player but he doesn’t come anywhere close to exerting the playmaking gravitas and decision making that Sexton does. You can even see it sometimes in the service he gets. Watch this example; he sees the space pretty early as Leinster’s forwards roll across the Munster centre-field defensive line.
Do you think Sexton is waiting for a phase to get the ball? Do you think McGrath isn’t looking for Sexton and getting him this ball on the edge if it’s Sexton at first receiver? Again, this is just one example and my opinion after watching hours of footage. It’s not really fair to compare Sexton’s weight in the team to Ross Byrne because there’s no way that it could realistically compared. Ross Byrne is a good stand-in for Leinster when Sexton is injured or rested and he can certainly perform well against decent to good PRO14 competition and Category 2 level European sides when given the opportunity.
I would, however, also posit that if Leinster felt that Byrne could overtake Sexton then he already would have given their relative ages and availability.
Nothing I see about Leinster’s behaviour with Ross Byrne convinces me that they think he’s the guy to invest in long-term post Sexton. He’s a good player – a really good player who could easily start for two of the other provinces and half the English Premiership – but at 25 years of age, you’d wonder how much longer he’ll be content to play the understudy role, especially if Sexton’s long goodbye extends beyond July 2021.
Long term, I think Leinster might well invest in Ciarán Frawley and Harry Byrne. Frawley is another flyhalf in the Sexton mould. He’s big, he’s athletic, he’s got a great passing touch and lot of variety off the boot. I think Frawley has a higher ceiling than Ross Byrne and, crucially, I think he can offer Leinster an option at fullback which might put the Skerries native inline to feature alongside Sexton if he can displace Larmour to the wing.
Of the lot of them, I think Harry Byrne looks the best prospect. His ability to break the line regularly at 10 makes him the favourite to fill the Sexton gap long-term, in my opinion. I think Harry Byrne has a more complete game than Ross at the same age and long term, I think Harry Byrne and Ciarán Frawley could easily play in the same Leinster backline at the same time.
But again, this is easy to scheme out in advance and a lot harder to do away from the laptop. Players like Sexton exert a gravity that goes well beyond onfield statistics and while Leinster have lost important players in the last few four years – O’Brien, Nacewa, McFadden and Heaslip stand out – I would posit that Jonathan Sexton is incrementally more important than all of them. Much like O’Connell and O’Gara at Munster, their true impact is only really felt when they’re gone gone.
It’s one thing to fill in for a guy like Sexton when he’s still bossing the training paddock and meeting rooms but it’s another to fill the space he leaves behind at a province that expects to win everything every year.
I’d say this though, the only thing worse than trying to replace a guy like Sexton is not replacing him.
If Sexton’s long goodbye extends beyond his productiveness at an elite level for a season too long, you might well see Leinster looking to recruit from outside. Part of me thinks that Sexton’s contract in 2021 is a crucial moment for the province.
I think if Leinster see Ross Byrne as a viable long term investment then they won’t offer Sexton an extension beyond 2021. I think this is unlikely, barring injury or a massive drop off in Sexton’s performance.
If they see Harry Byrne/Ciarán Frawley as their long term options, then I think you’ll see Sexton retained as a primary starter for, say, an extra season on a reduced rate from his current peak price to take him to July 2022 with an option for an extra year on both sides. In that situation, I think you’ll see Leinster making a decision based on their options as they stand in December 2021 post-Lions tour.
This is where you might see Leinster making a push for Joey Carbery if he’s not re-signed with Munster in a timely manner. It would mark a departure in the style Leinster have been cultivating for the last three seasons but if they feel that the Byrnes/Frawley aren’t the answer long-term then I wouldn’t write it off as an option.
If their young options are clearly panning out as a distinct level below Sexton’s best at 36/37 years of age or they aren’t yet ready for the responsibility of driving the Leinster attack, you might also see Leinster going into the NIQ market to give if they have the budget space for it. The only problem there is that there aren’t many ready-made Sexton replacements floating around right now.
You might think that Leinster would never go to the NIQ market to replace a key part of their team when they have Leinster produced young players ready and willing, but this ignores Leinster’s recruitment policy of getting the right guy when they need him. The post-Sexton world, whenever it happens, will be unknown territory for Leinster but if Leo Cullen doesn’t think that his homegrown options have what it takes to drive Leinster to silverware in the short/medium term then he will recruit from outside.
Replacing Sexton like for like is almost impossible.
How can you adequately replace a player that’s been the crucial component of eight of their nine recent trophies? Every single Leinster Heineken Cup win has been driven by Johnny Sexton. He almost won the 2011 final all on his own. Sexton has been a captain, a leader, a standard setter and a totem for Leinster and you don’t just plug a guy in to replace that kind of production. Replacing a guy like O’Brien and even Jamie Heaslip is an easier proposition. Munster have still not managed to properly replace the all-encompassing impact of Ronan O’Gara seven years later. Joey Carbery might fill that role but he’ll need to stay fit to manage it.
There’s little doubting that Sexton is entering the endgame of his career and it remains to be seen how the last few chapters are written. Whatever happens, I think we’re looking at a crucial part of the Leinster story and how they handle the transition to a post-Sexton world will define the province in the short to medium term.
