Ronan O’Gara can still recall how rotten it felt to see his young children struggling to settle in France.
“I love Cork but I needed to get out,” he says. “I am coming across like [I have] a heart of stone.
“I remember dropping them to school and there were times in that first three, four, six months when you’re walking out of the school yard and you’re going ‘I’m a bad bastard’… It’s horrible to see your kids cry.”
That comment drew laughs when O’Gara made it at Huddle Dublin, late last month, but the former Munster outhalf says seeing his children now conversing so comfortably in French is one of the unexpected bonuses of his burgeoning coaching career in Paris.
It was just as tough for him to get up to speed as coach at Racing Metro [now 92] in the first few months. He was at one pace, in fact, but many of the squad was at a crawl. The term laissez-faire seemed more than apt.
The Cork native had arrived from a Munster camp that was driven by the need to succeed and the even greater feat of not succeeding. Racing were very much sleeping giants but someone had unplugged the alarm.
“When you are working with a group, whether it is as a player or within the management group, you have to remind people how lucky you are. When you start talking about rugby as work, you’re beaten; it’s over.
“Rugby is not work. It’s a passion. It is something that, as a boy, you dream about doing. The minute you’re thinking you are going to work every morning, you’re missing the point.”
He tried not to rabbit on about it but he was intent on driving the point home over the course of is first season. By season’s end, Racing had reached the Top 14 semi-finals and O’Gara had been promoted to defence coach. He does very little work with kickers today and remarks that he ‘couldn’t imagine anything worse’.
Racing’s recruitment work, settled coaching, a strong leadership core and O’Gara’s ever-evolving defensive mechanisms saw Racing win last season’s Top 14 and reach the final of the Champions Cup. Life as league champions has not been easy, though, especially on the road.
“It’s changed now,” he says. “That’s in the past.
“We go to places now as champions… Now we’re struggling with coping with success because we’re 14 out of 15 for points at home and we are 0 out of 15 for away games. Why? It certainly has got to do with us, and a potential hangover but now you are champions with a target on your back. You come into a local town and everyone wants to beat you. That’s something new I’m learning about.”
He adds, “I’m the defence coach and we’ve copped 108 points in the last three games. Am I going to change what I believe in, considering that we went down to 14 men after 20 minutes of the [Top 14] final and we won, against Toulon? I’m not, no.”
Four days after that declaration, Racing went to Brive and leaked more easy scores in a 25-16 defeat. O’Gara is holding firm. He will be confident his team can repel Munster’s best advances this Saturday in Paris.
It must be noted that whatever O’Gara says in the press this week – through interviews and his column – will certainly not be the full picture. “Media is perception,” he says before adding, “Usually, what you read in the papers isn’t accurate because managers and coaches are playing games.”
So while Racing will give off an air of security this week, make no mistake that hard, searching questions are being asked on the training pitch. And, as much as they will talk them up, they know the best way to eliminate the chances of an away defeat to Munster is to put some serious hurt on them at Stade Yves-Du-Manoir.
“It’s crucial you take risks,” he says. “You need that confidence instilled in your players. If they see something, go for it. If you see something, go for it.”
Munster could do with this man back but he’s not ready. Not yet.
On the latest episode of the GAA Hour, Wooly chats to new Meath boss Andy McEntee about the flawed Dublin Championship and catches up with new Clare joint manager Donal Moloney. Listen below or subscribe on iTunes.
