It will be a year next Monday since Jonathan Sexton played his last game of rugby. Ireland's defeat to New Zealand in the World Cup quarter-finals brought down the curtain on his illustrious career.

And it wasn't a surprise. It had been signposted well in advance that he'd be finishing up after the tournament. Two weeks later, after much thought, Sexton decided to write a retirement statement on Instagram, because he felt it important to acknowledge those who'd helped and supported him in his career.

But he was taken aback by some of the reaction to that statement, as he revealed in an interview with the Sunday Independent.

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"When we set out, our thing was to inspire the nation. I remember Andy (Farrell) showing us videos of homecomings the Olympians the soccer team coming home from Italia '90 and getting a bus tour through Dublin,'' said Sexton.

"He was saying, 'Imagine if we did this! Imagine if we won!' And we fully believed we could, but I was criticised for the last line."

The last line in Sexton's statement was this: "We lost, but we won."

"I was a bit taken aback because I thought I had explained the (context). We set out to inspire the nation, and it was clear from the scenes we witnessed in Paris that we did inspire the nation. And from the aftermath when you met people.

"You'd swear we did win it from the way people were reacting. So we achieved that, but we didn't win. And yeah, would I have said it if I wasn't retired? Probably not. But when you do retire? What do these people that criticised me want me to do? Drag it around with me? Slate the team?''

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