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Johnny Sexton takes aim at BOD over 2020 on-air comments
Johnny Sexton has acknowledged that remarks made by Brian O’Driscoll regarding his conduct during a 2020 Six Nations match against France ‘annoyed’ him.
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O’Driscoll and Sexton are fast friends – even if they were known to have plenty of training ground verbal disagreements back in the day. However, it was television punditry by the Irish legend that Sexton admits rankled.
O’Driscoll had criticised Sexton after he displayed visible frustration upon being substituted with 12 minutes with the match results still hanging in the balance. Sexton admitted the comments hurt a little, stating they were not what he would expect from a close friend.
O’Driscoll said at the time: “I thought that Johnny Sexton played a good game considering the lofty expectations we have of him… That said, I don’t think it is visually a good thing to have your captain coming off and shaking his head the way he did.
“I’m sure he’s regretful of that and I hope he had a quiet word with his coach and apologises, which Johnny Sexton has had trouble doing in the past!
“Visually, for the rest of the team and for Ross Byrne looking up at the big screen – it was this prolonged, visual of him looking up at the coach’s box and shaking his head – as captain, you can’t do that.You have to be able to park your own disappointment and move on, to let the next guy come in and shake things up.”
Sexton admits the comments from his good friend took him off-guard at the time.
Speaking on Free State with Joe Brolly and Dion Fanning, the 39-year-old admitted: “Their criticism wasn’t scathing but it annoyed me because if my brother was on TV or my dad, guys that are loyal to me, and it was put to them ‘look at this’. They would have said ‘what’s the problem? He’s just shook his head’.”
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He went on to add: “I can’t even remember the exact words but it wasn’t how you would want a friend to (describe it).
“Maybe it was wishful thinking as in maybe I expected too much of them because it was clearly wrong, but what I’m trying to get at is when I rang my brother and my dad they said ‘don’t worry about it, all you did was shake your head and it’s not that big a deal’.”
Sexton admits he did apologise for the moment behind closed doors: “I rang Andy after and I apologised. As I was coming off I looked at the screen to check the time because I was like how long is left here and there was 12 minutes and it was when I saw there was 12 minutes, we were only eight points down, it didn’t make sense to me.”
“It hadn’t happened to me, I was captain, I shouldn’t have done it but I didn’t mean to do it.”
Sexton says he might have tweaked the remarks had been in O’Driscoll’s place that day: “I think I would and that would probably make me maybe a bad pundit because I would protect. I would say ‘well hold on a second, he’s a fiery character, he doesn’t want to come off the pitch, what do you want him to be delighted to come off? ‘”.
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“Maybe not fully protect, but maybe just give alter it a bit, rather than just throwing fuel on the fire.”
Obsessed, The Autobiography by Johnny Sexton is published by Penguin, Sandycove on the 10th Oct at £20/€25. Available to pre-order now
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