Thirteen minutes to play in the final and St Mary’s College are up 7-6 against Belvedere. It’s the senior cup, and they have won it once in the last three decades of trying. Their fly-half, Joey Connolly, scored the only try in the seventh minute and they have been hanging on to the lead for almost an hour now, while the rain’s been coming down in sheets. Connolly is just off, and here’s his replacement, a skinny kid called Johnny Sexton, running a loop on the 22. Before the game, Sexton has bet the boys he’ll drop a goal, and now he’s dropping into the pocket, back, back, back, and the scrum-half has snapped the ball and Sexton’s swinging his boot and the ball’s up, up, up into the wind.
It finished 10-6, “Cool Sexton Grasps the Moment” was the headline in the next day’s Irish Times, and you can bet his family still has the clipping, 21 years on.
