David Kelly: With Sexton gone, Jack Crowley is now primed to step into the glare – but he will have some help

Jack Crowley has been tasked with following 2023 title-winning captain Jonathan Sexton in the green No 10 shirt when the Six Nations campaign kicks off in six days in a Marseille maelstrom.

Whether he can also fill the immense void bequeathed by the play-maker who dominated the last decade remains to be seen.

It will not fall to him alone, of course. The new captain, Peter O’Mahony and the gaggle of leaders elsewhere will ensure that.

But there will be pressure, nonetheless.

All eyes look to the mythical 10, especially those beyond rugby’s narrowest confines, those thousands who only tune in because they recall feats of yore. From Kyle to O’Gara and Sexton, men who can deliver Grand Slams of authority, leadership and inspiration.

Many have tried – and failed – to fulfil the expectations demanded of them. Crowley leads the charge with the confident swagger one should expect but without the bank of hardened experience to inure him from sport’s cruellest blows.

Others lie poised in the wings, from the family of Byrne, Ross and Harry, and a familiar Burns (Billy) – though only Harry Byrne is here in Portugal.

A (Ciarán) Frawley is here and one half of the family of Prendergast, though, like flanker Cian, the latest in Leinster’s exhaustive list of candidates, Sam, is only here as a ‘training panellist’ (no, we still don’t get it).

For now, though, all eyes alight upon Crowley (inset).

“Jack’s always had that confidence,” says assistant coach Simon Easterby, admitting there is a void to fill following Sexton’s retirement.

“That’s not just now, it was what he was like when he first came in. I experienced Jack in Bloemfontein a while ago on the Emerging Ireland tour and he impressed us with the way he handles himself, the way he demands high standards, and not just of others but of himself, and that’s the mark of a young man that’s driving to be really successful.”

Remind you of somebody?

“He will have learned a huge amount from his time with Johnny, as would all of our 10s, Harry, Ciarán, and Sam coming in as well. So I think we’ve got a really good blend of players in that position at the moment.

“Players who are hungry to take the baton on and Jack’s certainly one of those. The other guys will be pushing each other to try and force our hand in selection.

“I think it’s a really nice group at the moment because there’s a bit of a void to fill, I guess.

“But that’s what losing a player like Johnny leaves. All four of them, Sam included, are really working hard to fill that and try and emulate and better what we’ve done before.”

That will include the World Cup, of course.

Easterby was keen in a Zoom call with reporters to massage a previous assertion that Ireland “didn’t fire enough shots” during their quarter-final defeat to New Zealand.

“I wouldn’t say firing shots. Maybe that wasn’t the right term,” he said.

“We had opportunities to go and punish New Zealand more and we didn’t do that.

“If we’d have been in a slightly better position, worked a little bit harder to get into position, we would have taken those opportunities to score.

“That was what I was trying to get at, not firing shots.”

Whatever about the words, Crowley will have the ammunition next week. Time to join the big guns.

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