Sexton is on fire – Jones (From Western Telegraph)

Sexton is on fire – Jones

11:30am Thursday 11th March 2010 in

• Skip social links
• Print
• Email
• Comments(0)

THE build-up to Saturday’s game in Dublin has been strangely different for experienced fly-half Stephen Jones – the questions he has fielded on his opposite number have not been about Ronan O’Gara for the first time since 2003.

The name on everybody’s lips when it comes to number 10 has been Leinster’s Jonathan Sexton, pictured, who has jumped ahead of his Munster rival and will start for Ireland on Saturday.

O’Gara has started seven of Jones’ 10 encounters with Ireland and came off the bench to replace David Humphreys in the other three.

But there is a new kid in town and Jones, never a man to badmouth opponents, is impressed with the 24-year-old Dubliner.

“Sexton has played very well since his opportunity against South Africa in the autumn,” said Jones, who will win his 87th cap at the weekend.

“He is tactically very good and is an intelligent player. He has good balance with his centre partnership and benefits from playing alongside Brian O’Driscoll and Gordon D’Arcy for Leinster.

“Ireland are blessed with two quality fly-halves in Sexton and O’Gara and they are different styles.

“It will be interesting to see what game plan they have but you have to give both of them a huge amount of respect.”

Yet it is the man immediately to the outside of Sexton that will be the focus in the minutes leading up to 2.30pm.

Ireland skipper Brian O’Driscoll will bring up his century of caps for his country when he leads his side out on Saturday afternoon.

Jones knows all about the 31-year-old from the British and Irish Lions tours to New Zealand and South Africa and is quick to point out how influential he will be at Croke Park.

He said: “Everybody knows Brian is a brilliant player but they don’t see the hard work he does off the field – his video analysis, his preparation and how he looks after his body.

“He is the complete rugby player and he compliments that with his attitude off the pitch.

“You cannot afford to give him space and he is a very good decision maker and communicator.

“He will be looking at the defensive pattern we are deploying and will be feeding good information to the 10.

“That means we have got to be smart in the way we defend so that we are not one-dimensional, we have to have some variety.

“But we have to get our own house in order, we have been really good for patches of this campaign but our problem has been that we haven’t done it for 80 minutes.”

Meanwhile Jones believes the signs are promising for Wales’ own midfield partnership.

The Jamie Roberts-James Hook combination has had its ups and downs but the fly-half thinks it will flourish given time.

“The balance is good but it is how we use those guys to their strengths,” said the Scarlets man.

“They have contrasting styles, which is what you want from your centre partnership, but it is about devising the moves and the game plan to bring the best out of them.

“I think we have slowly got better and we are a lot further down the line than we were against England.

“It is something that does not come overnight, just look at how many games D’Arcy and O’Driscoll have played together.”