Johnny Sexton will keep cool and test the All Blacks' defence this weekend. Photo / Getty
Johnny Sexton will keep cool and test the All Blacks' defence this weekend. Photo / Getty
OPINION
The biggest threat Irish first-five Johnny Sexton poses to the All Blacks this weekend, believes Isa Nacewa, who played with him for a decade in Dublin, is a set of rugby smarts that's off the scale.
"In my eyes he's one of the top two smartest rugby players Iknow," says Nacewa, himself a hugely astute player who captained Sexton's Leinster club and played in four European Cup-winning teams with them.
Now back in his hometown of Auckland, Nacewa said: "[Sexton's] ability to process what's happening on the field is second to none. I look at him and Ma'a Nonu as the top two guys in how much rugby knowledge they bring to the field. For me, no one else really compares.
"There are game plans that someone with a lot of skill can execute. We've seen Johnny do that through the years. But one of his best traits is also seeing what's in front of him, and playing that. He has the smarts to do both. He's really the heartbeat of the team."
Johnny Sexton will keep cool and test the All Blacks' defence this weekend. Photo / Getty
With Sexton's rugby intelligence comes an intense competitiveness. Nacewa said: "Whether it's a game of poker, or throwing a ball into a bin, he seeks perfection with whatever he does. You don't come across too many of those sort of characters in your career.
"He knows when to switch off, to a point. The elite of the elite, I think, find it difficult to know when to do that."
At 36, with 100 tests under his belt, nerves shouldn't be an issue for Sexton. And he's apparently always tended to be icy cool in a crunch match.
Nacewa said that Sexton's first big game for Leinster came in 2009, when starting first-five Felipe Contepomi was injured early in a Heineken Cup semifinal with Munster.
"The first time [Sexton] touched the ball he drop-kicked a goal that was pretty crucial."
Sexton's match-up with Beauden Barrett will be one of the most absorbing aspects in a fascinating test.
It's not like Spencer and Mehrtens
Meanwhile, the contest between Barrett and Richie Mo'unga for the All Blacks' first-five jersey is likely to continue until the next World Cup in 2023.
Both are outstanding players. Barrett's better suited to playing 10 rather than at fullback, and his defence - not a major issue for first-fives until Dan Carter revolutionised the position - matches his fearless running.
Barrett kicks a little more than Mo'unga, whose magical step makes him a constant threat with the ball. Mo'unga may not have the test experience Barrett has, but the man from Christchurch has shown many times now that he can handle big occasions.
The race between Beauden Barrett and Richie Mo'unga has remained civil. Photo / Getty
So we're seeing the greatest head-to-head battle for first-five in the All Blacks since Carlos Spencer and Andrew Mehrtens slugged it out before the 2003 World Cup.
That discussion drove talkback callers wild. It had all the ingredients to fuel the north-south cultural wars.
In Christchurch the haters saw Spencer as a Toffee Pop ad-strutting Jaffa who was so flaky on the footy field he couldn't be relied on. In Auckland the anti-Mehrtens people saw him as a kicking, conservative example of all that they perceived as dull and lifeless about Canterbury rugby.
Neither jaundiced view was right but the two players were very different. Spencer was a forerunner of Damian McKenzie and long before the phrase "playing what's in front of you" was coined, he never seemed limited to a preordained match plan. When things clicked he was sensational.
Mehtrtens was the plotter and, while he could run too, his forte was control, whether punting to put his forwards on the front foot, or picking - as he did so well at the 1995 World Cup - when to set the backline away.
Let's be grateful for the fact that public discussion around Barrett and Mo'unga is likely to stay as civil as it largely has been to date.
The difference from the Spencer-Mehrtens debate is that Barrett and Mo'unga are fairly similar players. They're both smart footballers, they're both gifted, and they're both gutsy.
Form, not clichéd prejudices, will be how their contest is decided.
Bringing back the great old ways
How could anyone not love the Black Caps? Since the days when Brendon McCullum was leading them they've been living proof you don't have to be jerks to be winners.
A wonderful line from the brilliant John Clarke (Fred Dagg) kept springing to mind this week, as our cricketers rolled on without histrionics.
John was thinking of people like Peter Snell and Murray Halberg, but what he once said in a 1970s interview could apply just as well to the current Black Caps: "Kiwis don't like to act as if they've won a race. It's just that everyone else happens to finish behind them."
