JOHNNY SEXTON WILL be assessed on Monday morning by the IRFU medics after he was substituted with a hamstring injury during tonight’s win for Leinster over Munster.
Sexton didn’t look happy when he walked off the field – but the early indications are relatively positive in terms of his availability for the Six Nations opener against Wales on 7 February.
“It was precautionary,” said Leinster head coach Leo Cullen. “He’ll be in Irish camp next week so he’ll be assessed.”
Munster captain, Peter O’Mahony, also picked up a knock in the second-half but the fact he was able to play through the pain barrier for 15 minutes, suggests he should be fine for the Wales game.
Emotionally, though, Munster will be hurting after yet another defeat to their rivals. They opened brightly, took a 10-0 lead but failed to build on their momentum, eventually losing 13-10.
“We were very, very slow at the start, from our end there were lots of parts of our performance that weren’t great,” said Cullen.
“We were 10-0 down with a mountain to climb but even though there were parts of it we didn’t deal with very well, either side of half-time we had a lot of pressure when we got turned over at the breakdown when we had pick and go opportunities near their tryline.
“At this level we have to be better.
“We need to be better, there’s a bit of a split now in camp, a lot of lads will go to Ireland camp and we’ll turn our attention to the Scarlets in Wales next week.”
For Munster there are regrets.
“Big time,” said Tadhg Beirne, their outstanding second-row. “We just left a lot out there, we felt we had most of the possession for the majority of the game and defended them quite well, but then we had a few knock-ons at the end. Those are big moments and we have to win them.
“Look it, I think we matched them physically and I think we would have won that game if we did things a little bit better.
“Everyone looks at Leinster as this kind of unbeatable team but I think we’ve proved here today that we’re definitely matching them and I think on another day we would have taken the win.
“As a defence we were really fronting up and we felt comfortable in that area, when they were inside our 22 we really felt like we weren’t going to let them score, it’s just disappointing we let them score off a set-piece and that was the deciding of the game.”
