As Ireland's injuries piled up during the opening rounds of the Six Nations, Andy Farrell spoke so glowingly about embracing the chaos that at times you wondered if he was manufacturing them himself.
If the Ireland head coach wanted his World Cup preparations challenged, then he got his wish with Johnny Sexton’s three-game suspension, which rules him out of Ireland’s warm-up games against Italy, England and Samoa next month.
Of course, it could have been worse for the Ireland captain, who was found guilty of being "confrontational and aggressive" towards referee Jaco Peyper and his officials following May’s Champions Cup final, in which Sexton’s Leinster were beaten 27-26 by La Rochelle at the Aviva Stadium.
In the full, 36-page report by the independent disciplinary committee released on Sunday night, they suggested that had it not been for his admission of guilt and clean record, his three-game ban would likely have been six, which would have ruled him out of the Pool B games against Romania, Tonga and South Africa.
If we’re gauging the mood of the room off Rugby Twitter – something best done with an open mind – his three-game ban appears somewhere between 'fair’ and ‘a damning indictment on Rugby Values’. We’ll leave the reader decide which camp they fit into.
Whether Sexton should have been banned for one game or 20 ultimately isn’t a concern for Farrell and the Irish coaches. The out-half will be available for selection for the opening game of the World Cup against Romania on 9 September in Bordeaux, and while it’s in some ways a relief, it’s not exactly ideal.
Some of the backlash against his three-game suspension focuses on the importance of the games he’ll be missing. As standalone fixtures go, World Cup warm-up games do exactly what they say on the tin, but with Sexton having been sidelined through injury since mid-March, it does leave Ireland heading into a World Cup with a 38-year-old out-half who hasn’t played a game for just shy of six months.
It was unlikely Sexton would play in all three of those games, but it’s probable he’d have played in two of them to fine-tune himself ahead of the World Cup. Now the Irish management have to accept the fact that he’ll be going cold into the tournament.
If you were drawing the ideal roadmap of Sexton’s World Cup involvement, you’d have given him 80 or 90 minutes across the warm-up games and starting the opener against Romania, before holding him back against Tonga ahead of the meeting with South Africa in Paris a week later.
That luxury no longer exists. Resting Sexton for either of those pool games against Romania and Tonga would be a big risk given his lack of rugby since suffering that groin injury in March, and were he to pick up an injury in either of those games his suspension would become much more expensive.
In addition, when Sexton does return, he’ll do so as a captain whose every move, grimace and utterance towards a referee will understandably be scrutinised. Since becoming captain of Ireland in 2020, the out-half's communication towards referees had improved considerably in recent years, but so much of that good work has been undone by his conduct after the Champions Cup final. His card has been marked.
His actions have also cost him the personal milestone of playing one final game on home soil before retirement.
There was a colossal ovation for the Six Nations’ record points scorer when he limped down the touchline late in Ireland’s Grand Slam-clinching win against England in March, which by his own admission he never really took a moment to savour.
"I didn’t really get to take it in," he said of that ovation.
"I was aware of it, I was aware of the crowd all day, but at the time I was asking the doc how long it would be for this, how long it would be for that."
While his injury robbed him of the chance to get one final outing for Leinster, the Aviva Stadium warm-up games were billed as the final opportunities to see arguably Ireland’s greatest player in the green shirt on home soil.
For both Sexton and the punters that will be a tough pill to swallow, but for many outside Ireland there will be little sympathy.
Watch live coverage of Ireland's Rugby World Cup warm-up games v Italy (5 August), England (19 August) and Samoa (26 August) live on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, listen to live commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 or follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie and the RTÉ News app.
