It’s a good thing Johnny Sexton doesn’t scare easy, given what’s coming his way on Sunday.
The last two times Sexton has come up against Mathieu Bastareaud at Test level he has come off worse for wear – knocked out cold in 2014 and bloodied and battered in 2015.
It’s little wonder the French use their Toulon battering ram against the Ireland fly-half, who tackle brave but also recklessly high at times.
In Paris last year Sexton was knocked out by a strong forearm from the bulldozing French centre.
Then this year in Dublin the two clashed heads when Bastareaud attempted a tackle on the Ireland playmaker.
In the closing stages of this year’s Six Nations victory a tackling Sexton was again bumped by Bastareaud with ball in hand.
Despite his many scrapes with the incredibly strong Frenchman, Sexton does not sound convinced that tackling Bastareaud lower will make much of a difference.
“I think it’s been spoken about last year, when I came back from a couple of head knocks, that I need to tackle lower,” said Sexton yesterday.
“But your head is just as exposed when you go low as it is when you go high, I think. The only thing I’d say is that when you go high, you’d expect the referees to keep an eye out for leading elbows or leading heads, and I think it’s up to the referees to look after that rather than me having to worry about it.”
“They said before the last game they were going to come down my channel because I was obviously coming back from a layoff, and I don’t see it being any different this time. You always want to target the opposition 10.”
Oh well, forewarned is forearmed… Or is that an unfortunate choice of words in this instance?
