Ireland's Johnny Sexton says it's not for him to throw his hat into the ring to become the next captain of the national team.

Rory Best stepped aside as skipper after the disappointing World Cup quarter-final exit to New Zealand. "Very disappointing couple of weeks," said Sexton at the launch of the European Champions Cup in Cardiff.

"It will take longer than a couple of weeks to get over the disappointment. All we can do is focus on the next thing and make a success of that. We didn't play well enough on the day against New Zealand."

"I've had the privilege of doing it once from the start once against Russia, I did it in games when Rory wasn't in Australia and Pete came off. It's up to Andy what way he wants to go if he wants to go with someone who's younger and build a team around them for the next decade.

"Look, that's not up to me to decide or speculate or to throw my hat in the ring. I'm sure he's got his own ideas about what he wants to do and how he wants the team to be led. I'm sure he'll speak about it in December when he gets the group together."

Leinster will take on Benneton, Lyon, and Northampton in this season's European Champions Cup as they go for their fourth crown. The 34-year-old was asked about whether the Leinster players struggled to work with the way Joe Schmidt's side lined up.

"That's the big challenge for any international team, that they have to adapt to that system. You've got four other different systems. All the provinces play differently and trying to get them to play the Irish way and we didn't do that well enough this year."

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