Sexton plays down Irish victory over Boks

Irish captain Johnny Sexton has been measured in the wake of his team’s victory over the Springboks in Dublin.

The final whistle sounded with the score at 19-16 after a tough encounter between the two heavyweights, but Sexton has played down the result.

“It’s a good start to the year, that’s it really,” Sexton said. “We’re building well but we have to win trophies.

“We had a Triple Crown, obviously very pleasing last year, but if you’re talking about championships, Six Nations, Grand Slams, World Cups, we’ve done nothing really, so you can’t compare it to teams that have won before.

“That’s the key to being a good team, winning trophies, and we haven’t done it yet. We’re building hopefully towards that.

“We gritted it out and that’s a very pleasing thing to say after playing South Africa,” he said.

“We spoke about it being a massive test for us before the game, so I can’t say different after it.

“We probably didn’t play our best rugby but that’s also a very pleasing thing. A couple of years we maybe would have crumbled or not shown the guts that we did there so it was very pleasing for lots of reasons.”