Racing were a poor choice for Johnny Sexton who is getting out at the right time, writes Neil Francis
Jonathan Sexton and his wife Laura, with son Luca, share a joke with Joe Schmidt during the Women’s Rugby World Cup in France. Picture credit: Aurélien Meunier / SPORTSFILE
Well, a large Hadron Collider of a story. The real story though was missed in an inkblot blizzard. Maybe the good news is enough for most people. The means, it seems, doesn’t need justification, I think it does.
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Johnny Sexton is coming home next June. Sexton is a compelling character. Normally a flaw explains the attraction but Sexton is a well-balanced, ordinary Joe. The imperative in his personality is that he is larcenously competitive and has a forest dark attitude to winning. The grumpiness in his persona comes a long way down the scale when it comes to digging for a seam of interest.
Sexton left for Paris in the off-season of 2013. The deleterious effects of commercialism and professional sport was magnified by his decision. His agent Fintan Drury negotiated a package most people would have found hard to resist.
Money was the prime motivation in the move; if the offer wasn’t high enough, Sexton wouldn’t have gone. It had to be high enough and, more importantly, significantly more than the IRFU could muster to overcome a whole raft of caveats that Sexton had to think about.
The coaching staff, his team-mates, the medical set-up, the playing style and the team spirit are all secondary issues when the money is just too good. If I was still playing? Oui, moi aussi.
That said, Racing was a poor pick on a purely rugby basis. Sexton’s talents were never going to be fully utilised. After espousing a progressive form of the game in Castres, when Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers travelled to Paris the aesthetic of the game eluded them and they played rugby deguelis (puke) as Patrique Spillane would say.
I covered about 10 games before Christmas on Setanta in the Top 14 last year and nine of them featured Racing and it was dreadful. Why pick the best running outhalf in Europe to kick the ball in the air? Even when Sexton ran the ball no one was clever enough to recognise that the wrap-around was where a team could really bear fruit. Either on pre-planned moves or ad libs Sexton would manoeuvre into a position of advantage and wouldn’t get the return feed. His frustration was obvious.
After nine games of this rubbish, I had the Samaritans on speed dial. As Tina Turner sang, “I’m your private dancer, a dancer for money I’ll do what you want me to do. I’m your private dancer, a dancer for money and any old music will do.”
Racing muddled their way into the play-offs but the stats told a tale. They only won 15 of their 26 matches and scored only 32 tries on the way. Only the hapless Bayonne and the relegated Biarritz scored less. They beat Toulouse in Toulouse, which was a seismic result, but got bullied by Toulon 16-6 in a match played at the Somme.
When you are used to winning with your club and more importantly when you expect to win, it is a little bit of more than a culture shock to play with a team (any French team in fact) that walks out onto the pitch on any away game with the white gloves on their mitts.
Inwardly, we can only guess what Sexton thought. Outwardly, he told the media during the 2014 Six Nations that he often felt like quitting Racing but then would recover himself. A training-ground punch-up with team-mate Juandre Kruger told you more about which one of the seven dwarves he had turned up as on that day more than anything else.
What seemed an unnecessary call to tour in Argentina in June was the precursor for Sexton’s move. According to sources in France, Racing at the time Sexton was in Argentina got down to preliminary negotiations for what would transpire to be a four-year contract offer. Things cooled in the holiday period in July but the prime mover in this story then made his move.
Joe Schmidt, no ordinary Joe, got his man. Schmidt travelled to Paris with David Nucifora, the IRFU’s newly-appointed Performance Director. It was unthinkable for Schmidt to have his commander-in-chief outside of his immediate control in a World Cup season. Schmidt went and did the deal in Paris. Rare that a coach would have that sort of commercial autonomy.
Reports in the media over the last three weeks suggested that Sexton would sign a four-year deal with Racing before September 15. If the player knew that he was going back to Ireland from July, who was doing the kiting? The back end of August comes and suddenly we are told there is a good chance that Johnny will be coming back to Ireland instead. This is indeed a new departure and sure enough it is confirmed last Thursday. Not much detail; no matter it’s great news. Any pointers on salary or how it was thrashed out?
Fintan Drury, the man who got the deal for Sexton to go to Paris, is not involved in the deal. Sexton and Drury have gone their separate ways and Sexton negotiated this deal with the IRFU on his own. Players come and go. Agents come and go. This though is a mildly sensational development. Drury’s reputation with his clients is undoubted. He is very good at what he does. He has acted for Shane Horgan and Denis Hickie in the past and currently acts for Seán O’Brien and Luke Fitzgerald.
The Luke Fitzgerald transfer saga set a precedent. The negotiations for Luke Fitzgerald’s services were at best fraught and crossed boundaries. The player ended up staying in Ireland but the IRFU would be waiting in the short grass for Drury. In bringing Johnny home perhaps now we can call it quits.
Whatever about Drury, the IRFU have more than just secured the services of their best player, they have buttressed the floodgates and they have embellished the notion in a thrice that quality Irish players are only tyre kickers and wage hike time-wasters. The umbilical cord tie with the IRFU is too strong and that perception in France has been vindicated with Sexton deciding to move back after only two seasons. Racing, I would guess, must be a little bit pissed off. Sexton was to be a foundation stone and he is gone after just two seasons. These Irish are not worth paying the big dough for!
In all of this brand Sexton comes out of it relatively unmarked. It can be said that he hasn’t improved his game in Paris. He can’t in all conscience point like Shane Jennings and Leo Cullen to their two-year hiatus in Leicester and state that their game was greatly enhanced as a result of their stay. Sexton’s reasons for leaving in the first instance were unconvincing and having listened to the L’équipe TV broadcast, his reasons for coming home are equally unconvincing. Support systems, foreign language, family, babies – these are things you factor in before you go. The term compensation is exactly what it is on a contract – monetary compensation for forgoing all of these home advantages. I hope he has negotiated a good package for himself; the L’Oréal factor applies here.
The star of the show? Joe Schmidt. This little episode demonstrates more than anything exactly who is in charge. Singleminded and determined, the coach has demonstrated his intent for a World Cup that just might bring Ireland into uncharted territory.
