Typical of Ronan O’Gara, he never backs down from a hard truth.
The pinnacle of O’Gara’s many, many battles with Leinster is, to his mind and the minds of thousands of Irish rugby fans, the 2006 Heineken Cup semi-final annihilation. Leinster had beaten Toulouse to earn a Lansdowne Road semi against Munster and Biarritz would await in the final.
Leinster must have felt they were close until they emerged from the tunnel to a sea of Munster red. Their fans had won the day and their team would follow suit. 30-6 and O’Gara diving in to the Munster faithful to celebrate a fine try. A Robert Kitson piece in The Guardian declared:
‘Power and glory with O’Connell as Munster machine mows down Leinster forwards’
Munster would win the Heineken Cup that year and repeat the dose two years later in Cardiff. Those triumphs and the one-sided nature of those interpros, Kevin McLaughlin recently admitted, was what spurredf him and his Leinster teammates on.
In the 10 years since Munster last lifted a European Cup, Leinster have lifted four, a Challenge Cup and have claimed three league titles. It could have been four league crowns but for a game O’Gara refers to as ‘the last big, massive game’ between the fierce rivals.
On The Hard Yards, former Leinster centre Eoin O’Malley recalls that game [from 30:00 below] in May 2011. It came just a week after Leinster had lifted the second of their four European Cups.
“The reverse of 2006 would have been the Croke Park game in 2009,” said O’Gara as he referred to Leinster’s revenge in the last four of the Heineken Cup in front of 82,000 rugby fans. He added:
“Leinster turned the tide and became the dominant force in Ireland. That day in Croke Park that Johnny Sexton stood over me. That was the day the achieved supremacy.”
The Blues won eight of the 11 fixtures that followed from their Lansdowne humiliation, including the 2009 semi win on their way to their first European Cup. During that run, they claimed five victories in a row. The provinces then met in the 2011 Magners League Final.
“It got to the stage where Leinster were European champions, coming to Thomond Park to win the Magners and do a double,” O’Gara recalled.
“That’s where the roles were reversed and we were like, ‘We can not let this happen. Are you for real?! These guys coming down to our patch as European champions’. That was the last big, massive game between Leinster and Munster.”
“When we won the Heineken Cup in 2011,” O’Malley recalls, “we had a couple of big, big nights.
“We were trying to piece ourselves together for that match [the Magners League final] but I think we ran out of steam down at Thomond Park against Munster.
“It’s a very difficult thing to do but there’s a few Leinster fellas that have already won a Heineken Cup at this stage and the special side of possibly winning a double could possibly calm them down and get them to deliver for another two big weeks but it’s a huge ask.”
At Thomond, that day back in 2011, Leinster led 9-7 after the hour mark through three Johnny Sexton penalties. The recently crowned European champions certainly did seem to flag in the closing stages as Munster rallied back to win 19-9 after a Keith Earls score and a penalty try converted by O’Gara.
There have been enthralling Leinster versus Munster games in the seven years that have followed but perhaps O’Gara is onto something.
There is no other way of looking at it than this – a Leinster win just reconfirms their dominance. A Munster victory and maybe, just maybe, we can start calling this one a true rivalry again.
