Sunday 29 September 2019 13:56, UK
Johnny Sexton has branded Ireland's stunning 19-12 loss to Japan a "blessing in disguise" because it happened in the World Cup's pool stages.
Ireland suffered one of the all-time great World Cup shocks in Saturday's 19-12 loss to hosts Japan in Shizuoka - but Sexton insisted Joe Schmidt's men must be thankful their hefty defeat did not occur in the knockout stages.
Sexton was at pains to explain how Ireland swept through the pool stages in 2011 and 2015 only to be dumped out both times in the quarter-finals - by Wales in New Zealand eight years ago and by Argentina four years back.
"The only blessing in disguise is that in the last two World Cups I've been involved in, we've not cruised through the group, but we've had everything go our way in the pool stages," said Sexton.
"And then we've had the day we had yesterday in the quarter-final. And we'd be going home today.
"So the great thing now is that we've got the rest of the pool to get things together.
"We know to a certain extent things are in our hands if we can win the last two games and score a number of tries that we can definitely qualify for the quarter-final.
"First or second place is out of our control, so we won't worry about that."
The 34-year-old has declared himself fit after a thigh issue to face Russia in Kobe on Thursday, where Ireland will battle to set their Pool A campaign back on track.
Chris Farrell has been ruled out of facing the Russians due to concussion, while Robbie Henshaw remains a long-shot to feature as he continues to battle a hamstring problem.
"It's up to us now to put in two big performances and hopefully get ourselves into a quarter-final," Sexton added.
"And we know that if we can get there we've got a chance.
"We've responded really well in terms of the other recent setbacks.
"At the start of the Six Nations we turned things around, had a brilliant performance against France.
"Things went badly against England (in August's record 57-15 loss at Twickenham) but we beat Wales back to back and started with a bang against Scotland.
"A five-game winning run now would be great, that would do nicely."
