The Leinster legend opened up about the painful experience in his new book.
Former Ireland and Leinster fly-half Johnny Sexton has revealed details of a heartbreaking conversation he had with his eldest son Luca after he made the decision to retire from professional rugby last year.
Last weekend, several excerpts of the ex-kicker’s new book, Obsessed: The Autobiography were published in The Times.
Aside from the explosive swipes at All Blacks star’s Rieko Ioane and Israel Dagg and the explanation behind the friction between Sexton and his fellow countryman Ronan O’Gara, there are a few wholesome and personal stories that give an insight into the family man that the Dubliner is behind the scenes.
Sexton and his wife Laura have been together for a long time and are proud parents to their three children.
The eldest Luca, appeared alongside his Dad on the pitch after the final whistle had blown on his last appearance for Ireland – last year’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final defeat to New Zealand in Paris.
In his autobiography, due to be released on Thursday, Sexton described that evening as an especially painful experience for his nine-year-old son Luca, who was not used to seeing this Ireland team losing.
“He didn’t enjoy it, and he wasn’t used to seeing his mum and dad so upset,” said Sexton.
“For someone so young it was a lot to deal with. He was only nine, a few years younger than Gabe Farrell, Ellis Catt, Ffredi Easterby and Paddy O’Connell — our coaches’ sons — but they kindly let him pal around with them over in France, whether in the hotel or sometimes on the team bus to training. They looked after him like a younger brother.
“Now he was back at school, hanging around with lads his own age again. Or his two younger sisters, who were oblivious to the World Cup. What a comedown.”
The 39-year-old described a heart-wrenching conversation he had with Luca at the time.
“‘Will we still go to the Six Nations?’ he asked me, hopefully.
“‘We’ll see,’ I answered.”
Luca then asked: “‘But we won’t be able to go out on the pitch again, will we?'”
To which his Dad replied: “No, we wouldn’t get to go out on the pitch again.”
Thankfully for Luca, he got to accompany his father onto the Aviva Stadium pitch one last time the following month, as Sexton was honoured before Leinster’s URC clash with Munster.
Another, much more salacious piece shared from the autobiography details the beginning of a kicking ritual which would involve using Ronan O’Gara’s face as a vehicle to kick more precisely.
The moment took place during the 2010 Six Nations when Sexton struggled off the tee after controversially replacing O’Gara as Ireland’s first-choice fly half.
A defeat against Scotland saw a turning point. Having kicked two from four, Sexton was about to be withdrawn but was forced to take a fifth kick before he was taken off.
“It was an important kick for me. A turning point. And that’s because of a conversation I had with Dave Alred soon afterwards,” Sexton explains.
“Dave asked me how I’d felt standing over the kick. This was the first time I’d been asked a question like that by a coach. I told him that I’d felt angry — angry at being replaced, angry at the way it had been done, angry that every time I took a kick at goal, I had O’Gara glaring down at me from the big screen.
“Dave reckoned that the anger had worked for me. I’d put some of that anger into the kick and blasted it between the posts, rather than trying to hope the ball over, as I had been doing for a lot of kicks.”
The 39-year-old continued: “So he came up with the idea of using O’Gara’s face to my advantage. Pick your target in the crowd and then transpose his face so that the target is right between his eyes. It was a brilliant bit of coaching — an example of taking negative energy and flipping it into a positive way of thinking.
“My place-kicking percentages improved gradually. They were only so-so against Connacht the following week. The week after that, we were in Limerick, of all places. I missed a couple but got the one that counted near the end, the one that ensured a 1-point victory — Leinster’s first win in Limerick in fifteen years.
“Little did Munster realise that I’d used their number 10’s mug as my motivation.”
