Search icon

Sport

07th May 2014

Jonathan Sexton involved in training ground bust-up with Racing Metro team-mate Juandré Kruger (Report)

The Irish out-half and his South African team-mate apparently had to be pulled apart after an altercation during training yesterday.

Conor Heneghan

The Irish out-half and his South African team-mate apparently had to be pulled apart after an altercation during training yesterday.

According to PlanetRugby.com, Sexton and Kruger had to be separated by their Racing Metro team-mates having squared up to each other after Sexton allegedly vented his anger at Kruger at what he believed to be excessive physicality at a ruck during an intense training session yesterday.

Sexton’s first season in France hasn’t gone as smoothly as he might have expected but Racing have still managed a place in the Top 14 play-offs despite being on the end of a 44-10 humiliation by Montpellier at the weekend.

Racing will go up against Toulouse in the first of those play-offs this Friday (the winner will secure a place in the Top 14 semi-final) and it was in the build-up to that game that frustrations boiled over and both Sexton and Kruger allegedly let their tempers get the better of them.

Incredibly optimistic Leinster fans might take this as a sign of Sexton’s frustration in France and a sign of his desire to return home, but it’s more likely that it’s the type of training ground incident that regularly occurs in a highly competitive professional environment and with all due respect to Sexton, history suggests that he can be a bit of a stubborn character when the mood takes him.

Fair play to him for having the balls to square up to Kruger though; at 6’6” and the best part of 18 stone, the Springbok is no shrinking violet that’s for sure.