Johnny Sexton: 'I was very keen to reinvent myself. I was determined to prove that I could do it in another industry'

""I had to beat traffic to get out to the High Performance Centre and I had a long work call between 8am and 11am," Johnny Sexton recalls. "The lads were then coming out to training and I was sitting there in the car with my shirt on. Call over, I'd have to take it off, put my gear on, jump out, train with the lads, do the kicking session, back into the car and off to work again for the rest of the day.""

"For the likes of Cian Healy, Peter O'Mahony and Conor Murray, who had trained and played with Sexton for well over a decade, it must have been a strange sight: their former teammate sitting in his car outside the Ireland squad's base in North Dublin, crisp shirt on, fielding a call about recyclable packaging. One year on from the 2023 World Cup when he had captained the team on the field, times had definitely changed."

Johnny Sexton retired from playing rugby in 2023 to pursue a business career and returned to Ireland's squad in less than a year to join the coaching setup. He combined corporate responsibilities with training duties, often arriving at the High Performance Centre between work calls, changing in his car, training with teammates, completing kicking sessions and then returning to work. Former teammates recognised him sitting outside the training base taking calls about recyclable packaging. Having captained Ireland at the 2023 World Cup, he now occupies a coaching role without matches and is using the time to reconnect with his children and rediscover the magic of Christmas.

Read at Independent