AS IRELAND BOARDED their flight back to Dublin yesterday, Jack Conan couldn’t resist having a bit of fun at Johnny Sexton’s expense.
He encouraged their fellow passengers to come up and give Sexton a hug and a kiss, joking that the now-former Ireland out-half would love it. Bundee Aki added that because Sexton is retired, he has plenty of time on the way.
They were only messing but it hammered home the point – Johnny Sexton has retired from rugby.
One can debate whether he’s Ireland’s greatest player ever and he deserves the tributes coming his way, but the reality is that Andy Farrell’s team now have to move on without a player who has been their talisman for more than a decade.
How many times have we spoken about Sexton’s importance to Ireland? How it could all crumble if he wasn’t fit? How everything revolved around him? That’s all finished now. The Johnny Sexton era is over.
In truth, the dust is only starting to settle on the World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand but it’s impossible not to glance ahead at times like these, particularly when a campaign has ended in disappointment.
Ireland fans will have to wait just over 15 weeks until their team is back in action on the pitch, with their next fixture a visit to Marseille to take on France on the opening weekend of the 2024 Six Nations. Farrell’s men will be out to defend their Grand Slam.
Ireland are also due to visit South Africa for a two-Test tour next summer, so there’s plenty to look forward to in 2024, with November Tests to come too, even if it all feels far away now.
Of course, Farrell is the strong favourite to be the 2025 Lions head coach and the IRFU has already confirmed that he will be granted release from this Ireland role if he’s appointed for the tourists’ visit to Australia.
It’s unclear exactly when Farrell would step back from his Ireland role – likely after the summer tour next year – but Simon Easterby would be favoured to temporarily be promoted to the head coach spot, which he filled for the Emerging Ireland tour last year.
In the short term, whenever Farrell and his coaches get back to work and start planning their Six Nations defence, they will be dealing with some key personnel questions. The head coach himself dubbed last weekend’s defeat as the end for the current Irish team but there will obviously be plenty of continuity.
The likes of Hugo Keenan, Garry Ringrose, James Lowe, Mack Hansen, Caelan Doris, Tadhg Beirne, Dan Sheehan, Andrew Porter, Tadhg Furlong, James Ryan, Josh van der Flier, Jamison Gibson-Park, and Bundee Aki are likely to remain central figures. While Peter O’Mahony indicated post-match that he will have to consider his Ireland future, he’s on a central IRFU contract for the remainder of this season.
The key questions will be how Ireland fill Sexton’s boots as out-half and as captain.
Jack Crowley has pushed past Ross Byrne as the second-in-line in this World Cup campaign, doing well off the bench against South Africa and Scotland before he was an unused replacement last weekend. Now 24 and having built more experience with Munster and Ireland in the past year, Crowley will back himself to step up at 10.
It’s worth remembering just how fluid the out-half depth chart had been behind Sexton until this year, though, with Harry Byrne, Ciarán Frawley, Joey Carbery, Ross Byrne, and Billy Burns all featuring at different stages in recent years. Leinster youngster Sam Prendergast is viewed as a major talent for the future but will first have to prove himself with his province, where there is strong competition at out-half.
Crowley does seem to share Sexton’s inherent desire to be the main man, his confident temperament, his physical combativeness, and his head for pressure moments. He’s a different player in some ways, with excellent footwork among his skillset.
The Munster man still has just nine caps to his name, so has a huge amount to learn about Test rugby, but will feel he’s well-positioned for the next shot at Ireland’s number 10 shirt.
Keith Earls is the other confirmed retiree from this Ireland squad and though he hasn’t been a first-choice starter, he has been a massive influence within the group. His experience and character will be missed, but the departure of leaders sometimes results in others emerging.
Farrell will be keen for Lowe and Hansen to feel strong competition for their places out wide and the sparkling World Cup debut of Jimmy O’Brien off the bench in place of the injured Hansen last weekend was encouraging in that regard.
O’Brien isn’t a kid at the age of 26 but he looked comfortable in that high-quality setting, so he’ll be looking to kick on with Ireland in 2024. Young, big Joe McCarthy was another to add energy off the bench last weekend and he’s still only 22, so is among a group of fringe players who will be keen to become more important as this season progresses.
Crowley and McCarthy were the two youngest players in Ireland’s World Cup squad, so it will be intriguing to see if Farrell brings any fresher faces into his group in 2024. Leinster’s 21-year-old versatile back Jamie Osborne spent pre-season with Ireland and is highly regarded by the coaching staff, while Munster have some promising emerging forwards who may have caught Farrell’s eye.
A wider squad for the Six Nations also means that the likes of Munster’s Gavin Coombes, Shane Daly, and Calvin Nash may come back into the mix, while there are plenty of other fine players around the provinces who will hope the next chapter involves international opportunity for them.
That said, Ireland’s average age at this World Cup was 29. Take Sexton and Earls out of the equation and it’s 28. So it’s not a group of lads who are completely over the hill. There will be clamour for ripping it all up and starting afresh with a squad full of uncapped players, but that’s unlikely to be the case.
A big question for Farrell to answer now is who takes over as captain.
James Ryan, Peter O’Mahony, Iain Henderson, and Tadhg Furlong are the other members of the current squad who have captained Ireland in Test matches, but there are other recognised leaders in the likes of Doris, Ringrose, and Beirne.
Before Sexton got the gig back in 2020, there was plenty of discussion around this subject and the great out-half was by no means seen as a certainty for the role.
Indeed, Farrell initially gave it to Sexton on a campaign-by-campaign basis but it was soon clear that no one else could captain Ireland while the main man was still there.
Now, the new era beckons.