‘Judas’ England great reveals story of Lions bust-up with ‘fiery’ Johnny Sexton after ‘perfect collision’
Johnny Sexton and Dan Cole on the 2017 British and Irish Lions tour.
England centurion Dan Cole revealed that the “fiery” nature of Johnny Sexton came to the fore after a powerful hit from the prop in training.
The two players toured together during the 2017 British and Irish Lions series in New Zealand, but the former Ireland fly-half took exception to the tighthead during one session.
They were preparing for one of the Tests with Cole lining up for the reserves and Sexton in the starting Lions side when the incident happened.
‘Wasn’t a Judas’
“Basically, I think we were training in Queenstown and I was in, as (Joe) Marler calls it, the midweek veg side,” the Englishman explained on the For The Love Of Rugby podcast.
“We were training against the starters and it was like shoulder on beforehand. It’s not full on but it’s a solid shoulder on.
“I hit Sexton. He came at the line and I think it was just a perfect… he dummied and you know sometimes just a collision is perfect. He passed and as he’s turned I’ve just hit him with a shoulder on.
“I’ve hit him quite hard, harder than it should have been, but it was just perfect timing. It wasn’t intentional but anyway we’ve hit the floor.
“I was like, ‘ah, sorry, it wasn’t a Judas, it’s just like a solid shoulder on.’ I ran away and said: ‘It wasn’t a Judas.’”
Sexton was not impressed, however, and did not buy Cole’s explanation, refusing to let it drop at the end of training.
Not happy
“The session’s ended and he’s like, ‘what the f*** are you mumbling at? What are you f*****g saying?’ I was like, ‘it wasn’t a Judas’, [he responded] ‘it f*****g was a Judas’.
“It carried on. We just ran into the huddle and he started carrying on going, ‘if you want to go we’ll go.’ And that was the end of it, basically.
“He’s a very fiery competitor, I felt bad because I had hit him in such a way that it looked like I had tried to Judas him when I hadn’t. It was just a perfect connection.”
Sexton played a key role in both the 2013 and 2017 Lions tours, helping them to a 2-1 victory and 1-1 draw against the Wallabies and All Blacks respectively.
The playmaker was surprisingly left out of the 2021 series in South Africa but he continued to be crucial for Ireland before eventually retiring after the 2023 Rugby World Cup.
