THE BIG SURPRISE last month at the RDS as Leinster beat the Sharks in a thriller of a game was that the South Africans seemed to be surprised about Johnny Sexton’s ref chats with Craig Evans.
There was wide-eyed criticism of the Leinster skipper on SuperSport’s coverage of the game back in South Africa, while the Sharks players genuinely seemed to be shocked that Sexton would so forcefully state his side’s case to the referee.
A side effect of South African sides having not played against Irish teams much over the past five years until the more recent addition of their sides to the URC? Because in this part of the world, we know all about how Sexton’s competitiveness can lead to those strongly-debated interactions with the match officials.
On Saturday, Ireland will face the Springboks for the first time since 2017 and the South African public will get their first direct taste of Sexton as an international captain.
Georgia’s Nika Amashukeli will be the referee and Sexton himself suggested today that he possibly needs to be a little more measured.
“That’s part of the thing that I just need to get better at in terms of the heat of battle, when you’re not getting decisions that you think are clear, that you just have to bite your tongue better than I have done,” said Sexton at the IRFU’s training centre.
“But then also you can’t take a backwards step and if someone’s going around high tackling, you’ve got to stand up to it.
“But I almost have to separate the opposition and the ref and not put them into the same category, so that’s my work-on.”
Sexton is still less than three years in the role of Ireland captain, having come to it relatively late in his Test career, but there’s no doubt that he has been a good choice by head coach Andy Farrell.
Like anyone in a new gig, he has had teething issues along the way but the Irish captaincy now feels normal to him.
“I enjoy it,” said Sexton. “There is a lot of extra responsibility and extra meetings, making sure you’re on top of the leadership group, making sure you’re organising different things.
“But if I didn’t have it, I’d miss it. At times I’d go, ‘Do I need it?’ but yeah, I think I do and I’m enjoying it.
“It’s still a work in progress, I don’t think anyone’s going to be the perfect captain but there are parts of my leadership that I need to work on.
“There’s parts that are good and it’s just about getting feedback and making sure you are always striving to improve.”
And Sexton is quick to point out that others in the Ireland squad make his life easier.
“I lean heavily on the guys around me. I don’t know if I’d say delegate, but you work well as a team,” said Sexton.
“There’s guys who have come out of themselves. Tadhg Furlong has really come out of his shell over the last couple of years. He kind of got put in the leadership group, I don’t think he wanted anything to do with it but he got forced into leading and he’s doing an amazing job.
“James Ryan has captained Ireland, Garry Ringrose has captained Leinster, Iain Henderson is the captain of Ulster and Pete [O'Mahony] is the captain of Munster, so it’s a good group and it makes my job much easier. We do it as a team.”
Having already captained his team to a Triple Crown and a series success in New Zealand this year, the next challenge for skipper Sexton is helping Ireland to beat the reigning world champions in Dublin on Saturday.
With Handré Pollard out injured, 24-year-old Damian Willemse continues at out-half for the visitors.
“He’s a very, very good player,” said Sexton. “He’s only played a couple of games at 10 for South Africa but he’s unpredictable.
“He’s got fantastic footwork, he has a good kicking game, he’s strong, he’s fast obviously – some traits that you wouldn’t normally associate with a 10 but he’s an excellent player.
“He’s a person we’re going to have to be ready to play but we expected him to be named at 10 so we’ve done a little bit of analysis on him and we need to do a little bit more again.”
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