Joey Carbery facing another spell on Ireland bench as Johnny Sexton ‘good to go’

"Look, I'm well used to competition. I've had it my whole career."

Ireland captain Johnny Sexton is back in full training again and clearly has his sights set on starting against Italy on Sunday. Sexton was a Wednesday withdrawal on the week of the France game, leading to Joey Carbery starting in Paris in the No.10 jersey. The Munster outhalf had a fine game, but Ireland still lost out to a massively in-form French side. Playing fantasy coach, many Irish fans would have stuck with Carbery for this weekend's clash with Italy. However, with Sexton fronting another media session this afternoon and stressing he was fully fit and "good to go", Carbery may be headed back to the bench. Sexton says Carbery getting elevated to a starting role the day before Andy Farrell named his Ireland would not have thrown him off.

"I pulled out early on the Wednesday and was hoping it wasn't too bad. But I went for a scan and it was bad enough to rule me out of the game... Joey's a very good professional and always does his prep right, so I don't think it would have affected him too much."

[caption id="attachment_249943" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Joey Carbery, right, and Bundee Aki of Ireland during the match against France. (Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile)[/caption]

Johnny Sexton 'well used' to challengers for 10 jersey

Sexton was gutted to miss out on the game against France, particularly having lost out to Les Bleus in October 2020 and letting a Six Nations title slip away. Asked if it was tough to watch the recent defeat from the stands, he replied:

"Yeah, of course. I'm not the best spectator, and this game was particularly tough. This was a game I almost had in my head for the past two years, after what happened the last time there. I thought that was a place where I could go and put those demons to bed. But unfortunately it wasn't to be." "There's lots of things to work on, across all parts of our game," he added. "It's not one thing that cost us against France. It was a load of little things."

Johnny Sexton was then asked how Carbery's rivalry differs from the one he had with Ronan O'Gara when he first broke into the Ireland team. His answer looped in many past jersey jousts with the likes of O'Gara, Contepomi, Ian Madigan and Ian McKinley all mentioned. He said:

"Look, I'm well used to competition. I've had it my whole career. Whether it was early doors with Felipe at Leinster and ROG, with Ireland... Joey has been around a long time - these past five, six years - so I'm used to it really... it's nothing new but it's just to focus on myself being fit and firing."

As for the upcoming challenge of Italy, the Ireland captain spoke highly of their Kiwi head coach. "I've always been impressed against any team I've played against with Kieran Crowley as coach," he said. "Treviso, Canada at the last World Cup [2015] and you've seen that in those last two games they played."

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