After a week of analysis around his performance against England last weekend, Ireland captain Johnny Sexton says he's his own biggest critic.
The former world player of the year says he was "gutted" after their defeat at Twickenham last weekend.
On Wednesday Night Rugby this week former Ireland out-half Ronan O'Gara had stated his belief that Sexton should not have been chosen as captain by Andy Farrell:
“There’s a lot on his plate with the captaincy, I wasn’t a fan of it [from] day one as I’ve said here.
“I think what he has brought to the jersey and to the position [it is] absolutely a huge honour and is entitled to have that on his CV.
“But for me, a team is better suited with another leader as your captain as opposed to your number 10 because he’s the on-field leader anyway.
“I think that he’s struggling with the malaise of his team. As a halfback, or a 10 especially, you crave space and time on the ball. He had zero on both fronts.
“But the opportunities in his own game, where he’ll measure himself on, he will be disappointed in terms of catch pass and quality of kick from off the ground or the hand from the restart.
“So I think with something like that you separate the goal kicking completely.
But Sexton says he's paying little attention to the comments made by his former rival for the Irish number 10 shirt:
"I thought ROG was coaching La Rochelle, how is he talking about us?
"I got some great advice recently, when you are leading an orchestra you've got to turn your back on the audience.
"Sometimes when it’s going well you can fall into bad habits and have a little peek at what’s going on in the audience.
"I’ve had a lot of performances like that. When you’ve had as long of a career as, luckily, I have, touch wood, a little bit longer to go.
"You’ve got to draw the character out of trying to bounce back from it. That’s what I’ll try and do, I’ll try to lead by example in that regard."
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