Michael Cheika knows all about Johnny Sexton, his strengths and his weaknesses.
The pair worked together for four seasons when the Australian was Leinster head coach and they have come across each other several times in the years since.
Having effectively got after Conor Murray and Joey Carbery in their First Test victory, in Brisbane, Cheika was logically asked if the Wallabies would be putting the squeeze on the recalled Sexton.
With a broad grin and a rub of his stubble, Cheika considered the query before remarking that Sexton ‘is one of the toughest roosters out there’. He continued:
“If we start going out of the line trying to do that stuff, we will get picked off, so easily.”
That’s all well and good but Australia would be foolish not to get after Ireland’s No.10. As recently as the Guinness PRO14 final, a number of Scarlets players got in Sexton’s face and embroiled him in arguments.
The outhalf admitted to The Hard Yards, following that game, that tempering his reactions to getting rough-housed is still an area of his game he needs to work on. He commented:
“I’ve got to get on with the game. Look, it does get on top of me sometimes and it is something – and I know I keep saying it – that I have to get better at. Like I said, I have to move on. I don’t worry about it after the games.”
Sexton and Murray will be in for a rough ride at Melbourne’s AAMI Park but Cheika was never going to connect the dots for the press. No need to fling out whopping, great fodder.
That did not stop the press corp, of course, and one of them brought up some comments Sexton made about being targeted by Cheika’s Waratahs side on the 2013 Lions Tour to Australia. The outhalf shipped a number of big hits that day and twice received on-field treatment.
Asked about that game, Cheika’s reaction was telling. He went to answer before pausing and laughing.
“Good defence is about being connected,” he eventually offered.
“When you do have the opportunity to go with line-speed, you all go together. Because he is smart enough to pick you off otherwise. And he is one of the toughest roosters out there. So you’re not going to knock him about.”
The card is marked.
Sexton knows it. Cheika knows it. The world knows it.
Sexton lives for this stuff and he’ll be playing a high line, almost urging the Aussies to come and get him.
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