Former Ireland captain Johnny Sexton won’t win any popularity contests in Scotland that’s for sure.

World class on his day he was the hammer of the Scots too many times for that. He has a new autobiography out this week titled ‘Obsessed’ that certainly won’t make him any new friends over here.

‘Obsessed’ is an apt title because he does seem to still be hung up about the number of Scots on the 2021 British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa -particularly Finn Russell.

He felt there was little justification for eight to go on the trip that he wasn’t picked for. That just sounds like sour grapes.

That Russell was selected before him by Lions coach Warren Gatland as one of his three number tens along with Dan Biggar and Owen Farrell adds to his hostility. He thought Russell ‘wasn’t Gatland’s type of player’ and suggested one of the reasons he was picked was because he was “the darling of the media” in the 2021 Six Nations ahead of the Lions tour.

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Maybe Mr Sexton your rival for Lions selection was the ‘darling of the media’ with some justification because he showed flashes of magic in that Six Nations.

The former Irish fly-half doubled down with his views on Russell in an interview in The Times on Saturday when he made clear Owen Farrell would be his starting ten on the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia next year going on to claim the media would want Russell because he was ‘flashy.’ Damning a fellow player with faint praise is sad indeed.

If you look at the 2021 Six Nations that Gatland based his Lions selection on for that summer tour to South Africa then you can understand why Russell got the nod over Sexton.

Russell got the better of Farrell against England when Scotland won at Twickenham for the first time since 1983.

Although Scotland lost - Zander Fagerson was sent off after 54 minutes - he put over three conversions and a penalty and there wasn’t much between him and Dan Biggar when Wales won by a point at Murrayfield.

Granted Sexton did lead Ireland to a three point win over Scotland at Murrayfield but Russell did get a try while Sexton got a conversion and five penalties. Russell was injured and didn’t play against Italy but played his part -despite his late red card - in Scotland’s first win over France in Paris since 1999.

In his new book Sexton claims that because Scotland only finished fourth in the 2021 Six Nations (he neglects to mention they finished level on 15 points with third placed Ireland who had a better points difference) and only beat France because the French were chasing a bonus point win to try and win the title meant they didn’t deserve to have as many representatives as they had on the 2021 Lions tour.

Eight was the most Scottish players this century and regardless what Sexton feels was totally justified. For a start Hamish Watson was voted player of the 2021 Six Nations and as for Russell he was always going to be picked ahead of the injury prone Sexton.

There was no questions asked when Stuart Hogg and Duhan van der Merwe were named in the Lions squad as they were on great form that year. Ali Price was the type of livewire number nine needed to unlock South African defences while Chris Harris in the centre was at the top of his game. Zander Fagerson was one of the best tighthead props that season while on the other side of the front row Rory Sutherland was consistent enough to be picked.

Sexton may think eight was far too many Scots but it was still the joint lowest amount of representatives from one country. Ireland also had eight with ten from Wales and eleven from England.

Sexton may be going apoplectic when Lions coach Andy Farrell names his squad for the Australian tour as there should be a decent amount of Scots in it.

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It may still be a year away but you would like to think that Russell, Fagerson, van der Merwe, Blair Kinghorn, Sione Tuipulotu and Kyle Steyn are already looking out their passports for the three Test series. Darcy Graham and Huw Jones could join them.

Sexton’s comments about the amount of Scots on the Lions tour back in 2021 is symptomatic of the bad feeling between the two nations that has simmered in recent years and hopefully is coming to an end as the current generation of players hang up their boots.

There has been plenty of on the field spats between Peter O’Mahony -one of my favourite ever Irish players- and Ryan Wilson. There were claims by Munster’s Conor Murray back in 2017 that Glasgow Warriors players deliberately set out to injure him by targeting his standing leg. Glasgow head coach who was Gregor Townsend at the time denied that was the case.

A year earlier Glasgow and Scotland hooker Fraser Brown was a victim of a controversial tackle from Munster’s Keith Earls who was sent off for the challenge in the Champions Cup clash and that led to insults being exchanged in the press between the two for weeks after the incident.

With so many Scotland and Ireland internationals coming from Munster and Glasgow Warriors the bad feeling kept spilling over to Six Nations matches. To make matters worse the Irish Rugby Union accused the SRU of not supporting their bid to host the 2023 World Cup and throwing their lot in with the eventual winners’ France which was the case.

During that tournament the bad feeling resurfaced after Sexton was tripped by Ollie Smith that led to a mass brawl that ended with Pierre Schoeman shoving Ireland’s Dan Sheehan over the advertising hoardings.

Irish pundits are a lot more vociferous than our lot with Shane Horgan, who made his debut for Ireland against Scotland in 2000, Rob Kearney and former Scotland coach turned television pundit Matt Williams never shy to criticise Gregor Townsend’s team.

Hopefully Sexton’s outburst in his book about the number of Scots on the last Lions tour draws a line under the bad feeling. Competitiveness between nations is always healthy but let’s try and keep it in perspective.