The Ireland captain equalled Ronan O'Gara's record earlier in the first half with a conversion before overtaking his former teammate's total
Johnny Sexton made history on Saturday evening when he scored Ireland's fourth try in their Rugby World Cup clash with Tonga.Speaking ahead of the game, Sexton insisted the record was not on his mind, saying: "I don't know, it's not something that comes into my head too often."Obviously I was unaware how close I was after the game last week, until I came into the press conference, and so now I'm getting reminded again.
"Look, it will be a very special moment individually but no-one else will really care, none of my team-mates are...I won't be making decisions off the back of it. "I want to win the game, I want to progress further in the competition and that is the only thing going through my head at the moment."The 38-year-old rolled back the years by effortlessly slipping through Tonga’s defence to touch down and then jubilantly celebrated his moment of history with fans seated behind the posts.
Sexton converted his own score to move on to 1,090 career points in the green jersey, seven more than O’Gara’s tally of 1,083. He had earlier converted scores from Caelan Doris and Hansen after a second long-range penalty from fly-half Havili briefly reduced Tonga’s deficit.
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