Murray Kinsella reports from Stade Yves du Manoir
WATCHING ON FROM the stands at Stade Yves du Manoir as Racing 92 advanced into the Champions Cup semi-finals, Ronan O’Gara was living every minute of the action.
Chiefly in charge of the Parisians’ defence in his capacity as assistant coach to head duo Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers, O’Gara becomes particularly animated when Racing don’t have the ball.
Avance! Mont! O’Gara’s orders to his players were inaudible to them amidst the volume of an impressive crowd at the rickety old stadium in the suburbs of northern Paris. That didn’t stop the Munster and Ireland legend from engaging. It must be difficult for the competitor in him to simply watch on.
He was a relieved figure after Racing emerged as 19-16 winners against triple champions Toulon, thereby ending the European reign of Mourad Boudjellal’s club.
With Dan Carter picking up a knee injury in the first half, place-kicking duties were handed over to Maxime Machenaud and the scrum-half missed three of his six shots at goal. Crucially, he nailed the final one with the clock ticking towards the 80-minute mark.
“It’s why you want to play, in front of full houses,” said O’Gara.
“It was a pretty poor first-half, we were inaccurate. An unbelievable dream start, but then dream starts can be counter-productive because we just go to sleep and their first attack they probably scored off.
“We didn’t capitalise from around the 15th to the 27th minute, we had a lot of opportunities and we just didn’t take them. Against a side like that it comes back to bite you.
“At half-time I was afraid the game was going away from us but we got it together and showed, I won’t say surprisingly good character, but I’d say good character, which was really pleasing because we just controlled the ball a lot better.”
O’Gara spoke afterwards with his two sons playing nearby in their Racing jerseys. Club president Jacky Lorenzetti strolled past and gave the former out-half a congratulatory squeeze of the shoulder.
This was a big moment for a club that is looking to create a winning history after some big investment in recent years. Next up is a semi-final clash with Leicester Tigers in the City Ground in two weekends’ time.
“There is no culture of winning in the club,” said O’Gara. ”There are no values and there is no culture of previous good things so it is very important to try and do that, but you can only do that by your actions speaking louder than words.
“It’s all well and good preaching that during the week but if you are not doing the business on Sunday then it is a waste of time, so this will give us a boost and it will either go one or two ways.
“We can kick on and go one or two ways – we can either play very well against Leicester and kick on or else we fall in love with ourselves and think we have beaten Toulon and the job is done.”
Racing’s achievement in reaching the semi-final is all the more special for having knocked Toulon out of the Champions Cup after their magnificent run of three consecutive titles.
“It’s the first time in 10 knockout games they’ve been beaten and I think you have to have played at a high level in any sport to appreciate how good a team they are and how difficult that is to do, to go quarter-final, semi-final, final three years in a row,” said O’Gara.
“It’s an incredible achievement, because every team is trying to do it. There’s only two cups every year and they can say, ‘Well, they’ve the biggest budget’ – they don’t have the biggest budget, they recruit really shrewdly, they play for each other and they largely come over when they’ve potentially finished their Test careers and find motivation to kick on and achieve at club level.
“So, I think they’re an exceptional team. They didn’t play exceptionally well today, neither did we. I thought it was a pretty average game, but it was all about the result; no matter how you got it.”
The impression was that O’Gara relished being back on a stage like this one, even if it was in a coaching capacity, rather than as a player. He will want a final now.
With Wasps and Saracens to play in the other semi-final, there will be one English club at least competing in the showpiece; perhaps a sign of the times. Certainly it has been a tough European season for the Irish provinces in the Champions Cup.
“I think Leinster will be disappointed,” said O’Gara. “I don’t think Wasps or Bath are… especially Wasps beating them convincingly; that won’t sit well with them, it shouldn’t.
“Then, sometimes you think it’s your year and you look at Wasps on Saturday; poor old Exeter, it was incredible how they didn’t finish the game. That’s what it comes down to, but Wasps have a big history in the Champions Cup and Saracens are the form team in Europe, the best side in Europe on present form.
“The great thing for us, not looking too far ahead, is that today was a massive step forward for the club. We can talk all we want about it, but we’ve never done it before. It’s the first time ever getting to a semi-final, so it’s important to savour that and hopefully guys will get confidence from it.
“We’re 160 minutes away from winning something, so that’s nice.”
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