“Thank you Jordie Barrett.”
There has been plenty of niggle between La Rochelle head coach Ronan O’Gara and Leinster over the past few years, with the sides meeting each other six times since 2021, including two finals won by the French side.
Sunday’s 16-14 result made it three wins in a row for the Irish outfit, and one of their star men produced a particularly classy gesture to O’Gara’s son after the game.
On ‘X’, the former Ireland out-half revealed that Leinster’s new All-Black, Jordie Barrett, had gifted his son his pair of boots.
O’Gara wrote: “Thank you Jordie Barrett. He will never get to wear size 46 but gone off to bed so happy…a classy gesture…Congratulations to Leinster .. hopefully we get another go.”
In his post-game interview, O’Gara said: “I think they’re definitely harder to play against, but are they better? We’ll see in May.
“You look at the final in Dublin (in 2023) and not many Test teams can do what they did in 11 minutes. We didn’t do much wrong and we’re 17-0 down.
“Plus they’ve Dan Sheehan to come back who I think is one of the world’s best players. Speed kills and he kills teams on his own.
“Congratulations to Leinster, they’re better, but I hope we get another crack off them this season because our boys can do better and will do better.
“Some teams that play them might feel that they are beaten already. For us that wouldn’t be the case.
“We analyse them and go through what the facts are and they have been scoring less points but they have been giving up less points.
“As a coach, the biggest thing I am disappointed with tonight is the seven points we gave up for the try. Maybe they had one or two other attacking moments but the try is too soft and we don’t deserve to win any game when you give up a try like that. That’s my frustration tonight.
“Home advantage is big too, we’ve got to be really disappointed with losing at home.
“It’s not a crushing defeat, but it’s still a big defeat.”
