Johnny Sexton has been helping Ireland prepare for the Six Nations (Image: Getty)
hoped they had seen the last of Johnny Sexton but the legend is back plotting another Dublin disaster day for the Red Roses.
Sexton has been acting as the master to apprentice fly-half Sam Prendergast in his role as a consultant coach to the inexperienced group of Irish 10s.
Leinster’s Prendergast, the 21-year-old who starts against England on Saturday, has just three caps to his name whilst back up Jack Crowley has only 19, in the one area Ireland lack experience.
Former fly-half Sexton was brought in by Andy Farrell, as a mentor for the callow 10s in the autumn and is back in camp for this , bringing 118 Irish caps and three Grand Slams to the table.
And the 39-year-old was a regular tormentor of the English notably when helping Ireland clinch Slams against them in 2018 and 2023.
Farrell is off on Lions duty, but Ireland’s stand-in head coach Simon Easterby has kept Sexton in the building to add his big game nous to the mix.
Easterby said: “He has been excellent in those little conversations around different pressure points that might come in the game that players who played where he did would have felt.
Sam Prendergast will start for Ireland against England at the Aviva Stadium (Image: Getty)
“Unless you have played in that position it is hard to give advice to people. He also has a really good way about him in terms of seeing the game. He, as a 10, would see stuff but it is also important players around him see stuff and it is not just him on his own.
“Johnny is still on a learning curve as a coach and a mentor but it has been a real benefit for us as a team having him involved.”
The Prendergast/Crowley selection dilemma, with Ciaran Frawley also in the squad, has echoed the debates that raged when a young Sexton was going head-to-head with Ronan O’Gara for the 10 shirt. A similar argument took place years ago, in the late 70s and early 80s, when Tony Ward and Ollie Campbell were rivals for the berth.
England aim to make Prendergast’s life a misery on Saturday and have picked a mobile, strong back row of the two Currys, Ben and Tom, plus Ben Earl to hunt him down.
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But Easterby insists it is no rabbit out of a hat moment from Borthwick who has started similar combinations in the past and Prendergast can take the heat.
Easterby added: “It is not like they haven’t done it before and it signals a bit of a way England want to play the game. That could be an opportunity as well.
“Any 10 that wants to progress and kick on, has to really grab hold of weeks like this and say ‘this is my team’ and there is going to be no grey about who is in charge, and Sam has done that really well. He has grown massively. He does not let many things faze him and moves on from things that have not gone as well as he would have liked. That is a trend in good 10s.”