{"id":200991,"date":"2025-11-26T10:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/200991\/"},"modified":"2025-11-26T10:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T10:12:12","slug":"johnny-sexton-hails-irelands-response-in-springboks-clash-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/200991\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Sexton hails Ireland\u2019s response in Springboks clash \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Ireland<\/a> captain Johnny Sexton<\/a> had to think back to a match played against Scotland in March 2023 to find a sequence that approached the chaotic first half of Ireland\u2019s Autumn Nations Series<\/a> game against South Africa<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

With a red card given to James Ryan, a yellow shown to outhalf Sam Prendergast for offside, another to Jack Crowley for hands in a ruck and a third yellow to Andrew Porter, Ireland closed the half with 12 players on the pitch<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Two seasons ago in the Six Nations<\/a> flanker Josh van der Flier was asked to throw into the lineout after Ireland lost both hookers to injury, while loosehead prop Cian Healy played hooker.<\/p>\n

Dan Sheehan went off for an early head injury assessment, but failed to return to the field. Replacement R\u00f3nan Kelleher was an early casualty in the second half with a shoulder problem.<\/p>\n

The versatile Van der Flier, that year\u2019s World Rugby\u2019s player of the year, stepped up for lineout throwing, while Kelleher\u2019s replacement, Healy, played in the middle of the frontrow to prevent the game from going to uncontested scrums.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the game on Saturday was a standalone,\u201d Sexton said, speaking at the announcement of the renamed Laya Arena at the RDS. \u201cThe closest we\u2019ve ever got to it was in Scotland a couple of years ago where we lost both hookers and Cian ended up throwing in, or Josh did. Cian scrummed the hooker.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat half-time was mental. This half-time was just trying to come up with a plan with 12 men, trying to come up with plays with 12 men. It\u2019s not something I\u2019ve ever been a part of before.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Tadhg Beirne believes Ireland will benefit from facing \u2018gold standard\u2019 Springboks scrum<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The reduced manpower forced the Irish coaches into blue-sky thinking at half-time about what to do with three fewer players than the world\u2019s number one side. Entirely unscripted, for all of them it was new experience.<\/p>\n

Normally a preset solution is at hand with tried-and-trusted tactical switches and tweaks, but playing a Test match with 12 players was in nobody\u2019s playbook. Centre Bundee Aki<\/a> was already appointed to play in the backrow for scrums. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was more coming up with a plan for kick-off,\u201d Sexton said of the start of the second half. \u201cHow are we going to chase it? Who do we hold back? Coming up with plans for scrum. How many are we going to put on the scrum? How many do we put in the lineout? <\/p>\n

\u201cAll those types of things. In terms of an actual tactic, it\u2019s very hard. It\u2019s not something we\u2019ve ever done before. These are the messages you\u2019re trying to give. A plan.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JoshJosh van der Flier prepares to throw the ball into the lineout in the game against Scotland in March 2023. Photograph: James Crombie\/INPHO <\/p>\n

The coaches also had to decide how many players to commit to rucks and at the breakdown. If three were contesting a ball then that left just nine to cover the rest of the field.<\/p>\n

It was all new to Ireland, but not unprecedented for rugby. <\/p>\n

In 2013 Fiji found themselves in a worse situation than Andy Farrell<\/a> and his backroom team did on Saturday. <\/p>\n

The Fijians were shown five yellow cards in a November series match against Italy in Cremona and were down to 11 men in the closing stages of the first half.<\/p>\n

Four of the players were carded in a calamitous nine-minute period, following the departure of their captain Akapusi Qera for a dangerous tackle.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re trying to say, \u2018Lads, we need to make sure we keep bodies on our feet because if we\u2019ve got two or three lads in a ruck, then we\u2019ve only got nine\u2019,\u201d Sexton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you consider there could be two in the backfield marking space there, then you\u2019ve only got seven. So you\u2019re playing seven against 12, 13 of them on their feet.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were probably loads of messages flying around because it was so frantic. But the lads went out and they produced a real good 10 minutes to get all 15 back on the pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consequential as the cards were to Ireland\u2019s 13-24 defeat to South Africa, management are now looking at the players\u2019 reaction to the challenge and the manner they were able to take the match to the Springboks.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ireland\u2019s 50% win rate in Autumn Nations Series is not where Andy Farrell wants or needs to be<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

In the uptick for the performance of the second half, Ireland unintentionally found a source of inspiration and have something to draw on as they head into camp for the Six Nations in nine weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that is something that we can definitely take away from the game as a positive. The guts, the determination. That is the minimum you want to see from any Irish team and they produced it in spades,\u201d Sexton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be huge. It\u2019s something that we\u2019ve been referencing and something that the lads showed. Unbelievable fight, problem-solving, just guts. I was proud on Saturday after the game in terms of being associated with that group of men.\u201d<\/p>\n

A serendipitous end to a chaotic weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Ireland captain Johnny Sexton had to think back to a match played against Scotland in March 2023…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[70904,75579,18,19,17,34132,76417,2525,96426,39462,132,4389,34131],"class_list":{"0":"post-200991","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-andy-farrell","9":"tag-autumn-nations-series","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-ireland-rugby","14":"tag-johnny-sexton","15":"tag-rugby","16":"tag-six-nations","17":"tag-south-africa-rugby","18":"tag-sports","19":"tag-springboks","20":"tag-world-rugby"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115615468487440719","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}