Ireland 60-5 Japan: Johnny Sexton says try on 100th cap is one of his greatest moments
- Published
Sexton was mobbed by his team-mates after scoring Ireland's fifth try against Japan
Johnny Sexton says scoring a try on his 100th Ireland cap will go down as one of the best moments of his career.
The fly-half received a standing ovation from a crowd of around 40,000 as he grabbed his side's fifth try during a dominant win over Japan.
He also kicked four conversions and a penalty as he became the seventh Irish player to reach 100 appearances.
"It was a very special moment and the crowd at that moment will live with me forever," he reflected.
"You couldn't not notice it - it was an incredible ovation.
"I saw my family. I knew where they were sitting before the game and they were smiling. Then I had to switch in and get the conversion and I was probably more happy about that than anything.
"There were very special moments throughout the game."
Ireland's victory, their sixth in a row, was delivered in style as they showed flair in attack and intensity in defence to comprehensively win both phases of the game.
"I thought that we saw glimpses of it last season but we probably didn't do it consistently enough. Today we took it a step forward in doing it more consistently, there's still parts of it that we'll need to get better especially for next week against the best team in the world," Sexton said.
"It was pretty good and we've been working on it for a long time. I suppose we got a result to go with the performance today."
'Defence was best part of our game by a country mile'
Ireland's dominance was not in keeping with their two previous meetings with Japan, at the 2019 World Cup and in July, both of which were tight encounters with little separating the sides.
In the build-up to Saturday's meeting Ireland's coaches invited their team to revisit the scars of their World Cup defeat by the host nation, asking them to take learnings from that game and ensure the same mistakes were not made.
Indeed Ireland made far fewer costly errors, although the strength of their lead from an early stage meant the two matches were barely comparable.
"A game always takes its own course and you have an opportunity to influence the game," said head coach Andy Farrell.
"You (the media) will write I'm sure about the points that we've scored, but by a country mile the best part of our performance was our defence today.
"We didn't have to do much of it and that's exactly what we want. We got the ball back very quickly because we were ready on turnover ball.
"Japan are lethal on turnover ball, that's what they thrive on. That and counter-attack. Once you go after a team and force a few errors and they know that that's their point of difference, then it doesn't feel like right to them."