Johnny Sexton offered the chance to rejoin Andy Farrell's Ireland ...

Former captain and fly-half Johnny Sexton could return to the Ireland squad in a consulting role according to reports.

The 39-year-old brought his professional rugby career to a close at the 2023 Rugby World Cup, playing his final game in the quarter-final defeat to the All Blacks.

Since his retirement, Sexton has stepped into the business world and is the Chief of Staff at Ardagh Glass after admitting that he would not step into a coaching role after his retirement.

He explained that it “wouldn’t be right” for him to coach many of the players he played alongside but he could take up a consulting position as soon as the Autumn Nations Series.

Ireland welcome New Zealand, Argentina, Fiji and Australia to the Aviva Stadium this November and Sexton could be tasked with assisting the squad’s young fly-halves as well as the potential new skipper likely Caelan Doris.

A report by the Irish Times states that no agreement has been finalised yet but that the IRFU management has reached out to Sexton to assume a part-time mentoring role.

It adds that he would have a small input during the Six Nations but that he could take up the position as soon as this November.

The scope of the role will reportedly be relatively restricted with Sexton assisting the inexperienced – at international level – fly-halves Jack Crowley, Kieran Frawley and Sam Prendergast, helping the players with their place kicking and advising the trio in other aspects of the game.

He would not be with the squad on a full-time basis but would spend a few hours a week passing on some of his knowledge gained during his glittering career that included 118 Ireland caps and 1 108 points.

It is also noted that Ireland do not have a specialist kicking coach -something which Sexton could assist with.

This would not be a groundbreaking move from Ireland as Dan Carter and Richie McCaw are still regularly seen attending All Blacks’ training sessions and have worked with the players.

The same is true with England as Jonny Wilkinson often works with the kickers, doing so during Eddie Jones’ tenure and has continued to provide input with Steve Borthwick’s squad.

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In a recent appearance on the The Good, The Bad and The Rugby podcast, Sexton admitted that he will “never say never” about returning to the game.

“What I was battling with after my rugby, I was going, ‘What do I do next?’ So I had this opportunity in front of me,” he said.

“Could I have stayed in the game? Probably. I had some conversations, nothing ever too concrete. I had approaches saying: ‘Would you be interested to come into it?’

“If you put a gun to my head, I would have loved it, but I’ve got three kids, we live in Dublin, they love their grandparents, they love the schools they’re in.

“I love being in Dublin as well. I’ve lived there all my life, apart from the two years I went to Paris, and I want to be there.

“You can only coach two teams in the world which is either Leinster or Ireland, which you can’t do straight away. You need to go and branch out, learn new ways, learn new methods, learn a new culture.

“I would be very fixed in my ways – the coaches that I had influenced me in those two teams.

“You need to freshen up. If I was going to go back in and work with the players, you need to come back with some new ideas, otherwise it’s just pointless for them.”

READ MORE: Johnny Sexton reveals why coaching Leinster or Ireland would be ‘pointless’ as great fly-half opens up on the post-retirement ‘battle’