All or nothing.

Ireland captain Johnny Sexton has come out and fiercely defended teammate Billy Burns following his costly touch kick miss in the final moments of yesterday’s defeat to Wales.

The men in green looked like they were going to have one last chance to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat late on in the game, after being awarded a penalty inside Wales’s half with the clock in the red.

But Burns completely miskicked the ball while trying to push it as far as possible into the corner, resulting in the ball going dead, ending any hope of a famous victory for Ireland.

After the game, Sexton said in that scenario as a 10, you “have to go for it.”

“As a 10, you have to go for it and get us five metres out. Sometimes you miss and sometimes you’re the hero, but it’s a big difference between 10 and five metres,” Sexton said.

“I’m proud of the boys for the effort we put in, but ultimately it came down to a few key mistakes. I think a couple of decisions at the end went against us, but Wales are a very good side and we only have ourselves to blame.

“We spoke about discipline in the week but it let us down and we made some key errors.”

Sexton added that he shouted at Burns before his kick, instruction him that he simply “had to go for it.”

“Billy you’ve got to go for it,” Sexton recalled saying

“When you’re chasing a game, you’ve got to put it five metres out.

“That’s when you score tries. If you put it 10 metres out even a good maul rarely gets over. Other days you’re the hero when you stick it on the five.

“It’s the life of the number 10. It comes down to small margins. I thought he did very well in the other parts of the game. That’s one moment but there’s plenty through that second half where we could have done better but it’s tough with 14 men.

“As a 10, you have moments when you’re a hero and you have moments when you’re a villain.”