He didn’t refer to himself in the third person, so he must be telling the truth.
We all remember those French attempts to unsettle Johnny Sexton ahead of the crunch World Cup clash last year, when his former coach at Racing Metro, Bernard Labit, reportedly described the Leinster fly-half as the “Zlatan Ibrahimovic of rugby”.
A demanding, world class, highly-paid talisman at a leading Parisian club, the comment could have been taken as a complimentary comparison between Racing’s leading man and Paris St Germain’s pony-tailed deity.
But clearly that was not what was meant.
Instead Labit was suggesting that Sexton’s erstwhile team-mates found Sexton to be a cantankerous primadonna with notions about himself who pissed off his colleagues with his demands in training.
It has long been a running joke in Irish rugby that Sexton can be a bit of a grouch at training and not afraid to tear strips off the likes of Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell, if required.
At yesterday’s Leinster press conference ahead of tomorrow’s trip to Coventry to play Wasps, Sexton responded to the accusations that he was Ireland’s answer to everyone’s favourite Swedo-God.
“I’m not Zlatan anyway, I’ll tell you that. I don’t know who I am. People portray me as some grump. I am a man of many faces maybe. Again, perception and reality.”
See, there are two of those faces.
Sexton will captain Leinster tomorrow at the Ricoh Arena for the first time, with Leo Cullen making 11 changes from the team that beat Bath last weekend – with all of ‘Cullens’ Cubs’ from last week making way for more established frontliners.
There is room on the bench for Josh van der Flier, Ross Molony and Peter Dooley however as the three-time champions look to round off their European season with a second Premiership scalp.
