JOHNNY SEXTON SAYS Ireland have made a point of ensuring complacency doesn’t creep into the squad ahead of the Six Nations, as Andy Farrell’s men look to build on their excellent November campaign.
After a mixed performance in this tournament last season, Ireland were much improved in November as they swept aside Japan, New Zealand and Argentina in style.
Those displays have served to raise expectations ahead of the 2022 Six Nations, which for Ireland begins against Wales at the Aviva Stadium this weekend.
The Ireland squad are still in Portugal as they prepare for Saturday’s opener, with the group taking in a warm-weather training camp in Faro before flying back to Dublin later this week.
“The mood has been good. It helps when you come in off the back of a good November, a very happy camp,” Sexton says.
We spoke about trying to take it to a new level, and it’s been a fantastic environment to be a part of in the last two years. It’s really changed, but we’ve figured out ways to push it on and make it better in terms of our performances, and we’ve been working hard, it hasn’t been all slapping each other on the back.
Ireland arrive at this Six Nations in good health, carrying momentum from that impressive November series and boasting a relatively clean bill of health.
If there’s one concern, it’s that some of Farrell’s key men haven’t had a huge amount of rugby recently, with Leinster playing only two games between their 11 December win over Bath and last week’s flight to Portugal.
“I said this last week at the captain’s launch, we’re in a very similar situation to last November when there wasn’t a lot of game time in most of the lads with games called off or whatever, or injury or sickness,” Sexton continues.
“Some guys had one game or not even that and we hit the ground running so it’s not an excuse or something we’ve spoken about.
“When you come in the door of Irish camp you’re expected to hit certain standards and the guys doing that day in and day out at training are the guys who will get picked and the guys who don’t won’t. That’s it in a nutshell.
The proof will be in the pudding on Saturday. If we put in a good performance then we were fresh and good to go. If we don’t play well and lose people will say we were undercooked. You are judged by the result and performance, but there is no excuse.”
Sexton added that while there’s always been a strong rivalry between Ireland and Wales, the nature of that rivalry has changed over the course of his playing career.
“There’s probably a rivalry in almost every game (in the Six Nations) in their own unique way. With us and Wales, there have been big battles over the years, in my early days especially there was a nastier side to it,” he said.
“I think now when you talk about rivalries, Leinster-Munster, all the provinces have that rivalry because you don’t like losing to the guys close to you.
“There’s probably an element of that with the Welsh boys, that they get on so well with the Irish boys on Lions tours and after games. When you have relationships like that you don’t want to lose to people you’re close to.
“Not all rivalries are like that, some of them you’re just not close to the people and you want to beat them.
“We’re really only focused on our first game but when you look across the competition at squads being announced and all teams are coming off the back of a good November… A lot of teams from last Six Nations will feel they could have done a bit better.
“Wales, obviously having won it probably felt they should have won a Grand Slam, but there are a few other teams in there thinking they maybe should have done better. I think when you put it like that, teams will be coming in with big aspirations.”
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