Johnny Sexton set for stunning rugby return within days ahead of All Blacks game

Ireland legend Johnny Sexton is set for a big return to rugby.

The former Leinster fly-half called time on his rugby career after captaining Ireland to a semi-final finish at the Rugby World Cup in 2023. However, he could reportedly return to the national team in a consulting role.

Since hanging up his boots, Sexton has put his Bachelor's of Commerce degree to good use and went into a commercial manager role for a glass and metal company in early 2024.

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A report from the Irish Times states the IRFU has reached out to Sexton to assume a part-time mentoring role. The Irish icon would have input into the upcoming Six Nations, and could start in November, with the All Blacks the first opposition on November 8.

The role will reportedly involve Sexton mentoring the inexperienced fly-halves, such as Munster's Jack Crowley and Leinster's Ciarán Frawley and Sam Prendergast. He would help them with place-kicking and other aspects of the game, but he wouldn't be with the squad on a full-time basis, instead just helping out as and when he is required.

With 118 Ireland caps and 1,108 points (a record), Sexton's experience and class would be invaluable for Andy Farrell's team. It was also noted in the report that Ireland do not currently have a kicking coach, which is something the 39-year-old could help with.

On a recent episode of The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast, Sexton revealed that he could never rule out returning to the egg-shaped game. "What I was battling with after my rugby, I was going, ‘What do I do next?’ So I had this opportunity in front of me," he explained. "Could I have stayed in the game? Probably. I had some conversations, nothing ever too concrete. I had approaches saying: ‘Would you be interested to come into it?

"If you put a gun to my head, I would have loved it, but I've got three kids, we live in Dublin, they love their grandparents, they love the schools they're in.

"I love being in Dublin as well. I've lived there all my life, apart from the two years I went to Paris, and I want to be there. You can only coach two teams in the world which is either Leinster or Ireland, which you can’t do straight away. You need to go and branch out, learn new ways, learn new methods, learn a new culture.

"I would be very fixed in my ways – the coaches that I had influenced me in those two teams. You need to freshen up. If I was going to go back in and work with the players, you need to come back with some new ideas, otherwise it’s just pointless for them."