Johnny Sexton: 'Lions snub hurt but it lengthened my career'

Alun Wyn Jones will become the third-oldest player ever to appear in the Six Nations on Saturday so it is remarkable to consider that the Welsh talisman will not even be the oldest on that pitch at the Principality Stadium.

That blue-rinsed honour will go to Johnny Sexton, the Irish fly-half who is two months the senior of the ageless lock and who is on course to break the record as the Championship’s most golden of oldies.

All being well for Sexton, Leinster’s Mr Longevity will replace Simon Shaw’s 37 years and 199 days in the history books by playing in the second round of matches against France on Saturday week.

It is a scenario that did not seem at all likely 20 months ago, when Warren Gatland announced that he would not be taking Sexton on the British and Irish Lions Tour to South Africa, citing fears over the then 35-year-old’s “durability”, with the injuries piling up almost as quickly as the years.

Many feared that surprise rejection might hasten the end of a garlanded career but now it is clear that Gatland’s snub inspired the veteran to move the finishing line ever further into the distance.

“It was gutting,” Sexton said this week. “I’d saved my Lions’ Test jerseys and we had them framed and I said to Laura [his wife], ‘I’m not putting them on the wall until the South African tour was over because I wanted the three tours together,’ but that’s life.

“But did it motivate me? Oh, yeah. It gave me a bit of time to mull things over and go, ‘Do I want to go out like this or do I want to go out in two or three years’ time at the top?’”

In those intervening 20 months, Sexton has seemingly achieved the implausible and actually improved, earning a place on the four-man shortlist for World Player of the Year in 2022, an award he won in 2018. Gatland, the returning Kiwi who will take charge of his first Wales Test in more than three years, acknowledged the time-defying heroics on Tuesday.

“I think Johnny has been playing some great rugby in the last year or so,” he said. “It was a big decision to leave him out of that Lions tour – a tough call – but he has probably proved me wrong in terms of the way he has been playing and the way he has been leading. He should be proud of what he has achieved in the game because it is pretty special and he will go down as one of the great players of Irish rugby.”

Sexton is not about to thank Gatland for the incentive but neither is he going to go all “Jilted Johnny” and so turn this Cardiff collision into a personal grudge match. “There is no animosity between me and Warren,” Sexton said. “People make their decisions and at the time they make them for what they believe are the right reasons. So you can’t hold that against him. It’s over, it’s gone and you can’t have it back. I met him at the Six Nations launch [last month] and we shook hands. I got on very well with him on the two previous tours, which is probably why it hurt so much.”

In truth, Gatland and Sexton are two kindred spirits; bullish characters who will not settle for second best. “Johnny is so demanding and has such high expectations, that’s what drives him and he’s very vocal,” Gatland said. “I can remember one occasion on the 2013 Lions Tour [to Australia] when Johnny started having a crack at the forwards. Paul O’Connell just turned away. He didn’t answer Johnny back but said, ‘I’m going to kill him one of these days!’ His commitment has never wavered.”

It is not only Gatland busy chomping on the humble pie. Bernard Jackman, who played with Sexton at Leinster and who was named in the same Ireland squad in 2008 when the Dubliner set out an international odyssey that has so far brought 115 caps, admits to being “at the front, waving the placards for Faz [Andy Farrell, the Ireland coach] to look elsewhere” for the autumn series in 2021.

“I was wrong and was happy to eat my words after seeing what came to fruition that November [as they beat New Zealand],” Jackman said. “I was excited for him to go through another transition. You know he's seen a lot of different cultures, seen a lot of different game plans, seen a lot of different players come in out of the Irish squad. And again, it has been that regeneration that he's helped to drive, being on that train and making it evolve more and more.”

The last stop should be the World Cup in France in September and October, although with Sexton it is always unwise to sound the whistle prematurely, no matter what he promises about retirement. He knows no quit, in every sense.

There were doubts whether he would make it for the Wales game, after he sustained a cheekbone injury on New Year’s that required an operation. No matter, he donned a mask, went to training before ditching it for Wednesday’s session in which he proved to Farrell that he was fit to take the starting role as captain. “Well, I’m not allowed to wear the mask on Saturday,” Sexton said.

The Six Nations favourites are ecstatic to have him at the helm, with little concern that he has not played for six weeks. “Johnny’s a phenomenon,” said that other Irish great Mike Gibson. “Normal rules just do not apply.”