Thierry Dusautoir says Ireland are too strong to just target Johnny Sexton
Saturday 14 February 2015 16:44, UK
Thierry Dusautoir says France will not single out the returning Johnny Sexton when he returns to Ireland action on Saturday.
Fly-half Sexton is back after a 12-week lay-off, which was mandated after he suffered a fourth concussion in 12 months.
France spent the early part of the week trying to heap pressure on Sexton, with former international Laurent Benezech claiming Ireland were making a 'big mistake' in rushing him back into such a high-profile fixture. Ireland responded angrily, by saying a host of different medical experts have now passed him fit.
The IRFU said: "Johnny was cleared to play on Thursday, February 5 by independent neurologists in France and Ireland, the FFR concussion review committee, the Racing Metro medical team, the Ireland medical team."
Huge experience
But captain Dusautoir seemed to take a step back from their emphasis on Sexton, as he said: "I don't view him as a target.
"This Ireland team has far too many threats and good players to focus solely on one. He wouldn't be playing if he hadn't met all the concussion demands.
"He's not the only player with experience and power returning either: they have Jamie Heaslip and Sean O'Brien back, so I wouldn't want to concentrate on one man like that.
"It's a team that has huge experience returning after Italy. There's a lot of strength in there; Sexton adds a lot of strength at half-back."
Sexton respect
Les Bleus coach Philippe Saint-Andre was not being particularly light-hearted when pledging to send wrecking-ball centre Mathieu Bastareaud straight down Sexton's channel from the off this weekend.
But when it came to the turn of Dusautoir and assistant coach Yannick Bru, speaking on Irish soil amid eve-of-match fervour, the France duo chose to diffuse what they could of the steadily-building intensity.
"We respect him (Sexton) a great deal, he is a huge character - and we will not target him, we will just concentrate on our game, on our efficiency," Bru added.
"Obviously first of all it's very bad news for us that Johnny Sexton is playing in this game, because it's a different Ireland team with him than without him, as we saw last week.
"To target him would be to forget that Joe Schmidt is very clever. So we will play the game as though Johnny was not there.
"We've worked a lot on what we can control: so with Johnny, Sean O'Brien and Jamie Heaslip back fit: it's good news for Ireland but bad news for us."
