BEFORE HE FIELDS questions about Ireland’s trip to Marseille, Ronan O’Gara unveils a new online advertisement that he recently recorded for Guinness ahead of the Six Nations championship.
It’s a recreation of the famed ‘f***ing énorme’ speech that he barked into the hearts of his La Rochelle players a few days out from their victory over Bordeaux in last season’s Top 14 semi-final. The revelation at the end of Guinness’ sequel, however, it that O’Gara’s impassioned instructions have been directed towards Irish rugby fans in a pub.
There is an admirable commitment to O’Gara’s acting debut, which is missing only the F-bombs from the original event.
Perhaps the Oscar nomination went to the wrong product of Presentation Brothers College, Cork.
“I’m telling ya!” O’Gara says. “The director said it as well on the day.
“Cillian Murphy… We might see him again, you never know!”
It’s just under 24 years since O’Gara made his even more nerve-wracking bow on the test-rugby stage, the first of his 128 Ireland caps coming off the bench against Scotland at Lansdowne Road during the 2000 Six Nations.
It’s so long ago, he says, that it’s tough to put himself in the boots of Jack Crowley, whose first Six Nations start — after playing only three minutes in the tournament previously — should arrive this Friday night.
On the face of it, Crowley’s championship debut proper — away to France at Marseille’s Stade Velodrome bullpen — strikes as an altogether more daunting task than steering Ireland to the finish line of a heavy home win over the Scots.
But from what O’Gara has already gleaned from his fellow Munster man, Crowley will be a steadier presence even in the far more hostile environment of France’s second city when the curtain is raised in three nights’ time.
“I left the occasion get to me unbelievably,” O’Gara says of his own Ireland debut. “I was a bag of nerves. I was a complete wreck.
“But that was probably par for the course at the time. 25 years later or whatever it is, it’s a very different setup. These guys are way more advanced in terms of preparation, in terms of nutrition, in terms of the psychological aspects of the game.
“I think what I like about Jack Crowley is I don’t get the impression he’s going to leave the seat available for someone. I think he has that element of confidence in him, yet a lot of humility in him.
“I think what is so important at test level is he doesn’t let mistakes eat at his mindset. So, he’ll continue to back his decisions, he’ll continue to ask questions of the defence, and I think that’ll stand him well.
“In that position, you’re only going to get better for the number of minutes you play. Yeah, he’s lacking minutes but I don’t think he’s lacking mental fortitude, that’s for sure.”
Crowley’s obstinacy was among the qualities which especially stood to O’Gara when he first tried to persuade him to swap Munster for La Rochelle a couple of years ago.
O’Gara felt that there was an aura to the Inishannon man, regardless of Crowley’s limited body of work to that point.
And that he failed to land his man, who has gone on to beat both Joey Carbery and Ben Healy into becoming Munster’s ‘franchise’ 10 for the foreseeable future, has seen Crowley only rise in his estimation.
“Ah, I could just see it, y’know?” O’Gara says. “Me giving an opinion on a prop, I don’t have any legitimacy to do that. But when I see a 10, I understand what’s involved and I can see it pretty much straight away.
“It was something that just jumped out at me, kind of: ‘Yeah, I like that guy. Get him.’
“But…” O’Gara pauses. “I think he’s the only guy who’s said ‘no’ to me!”
The La Rochelle head coach isn’t expecting much in the way of a World Cup hangover when Friday’s two beaten quarter-finalists meet in the middle.
His impression from speaking to his own France players is that Les Bleus may be “freed up a little bit”. O’Gara suspects that Fabien Galthié’s side will pivot further away from their recent focus on de-possession and kicking from within their own half, and instead embrace a more traditional, effervescent approach to this year’s competition.
“Maybe with a bit of hindsight, they feel that they had more to offer with the ball”, O’Gara says, “and I would probably agree with that. I think they were fascinated by data and kicking metres.
“They are very dangerous. They’ll have threats all over the park. For me it’s [a] fascinating [match-up] between a lot of X-factor and a cohesive, structured, unbelievably fit Ireland team.”
On the Irish side of the equation, O’Gara has, like the rest of us, mulled over the World Cup exit at the hands of New Zealand to the Nth degree.
The conclusions at which he eventually landed were fairly straightforward: Ireland paid the ultimate price for giving New Zealand a “leg up”.
“You can’t let them go 13 up,” he says. “It’s a big lead and Ireland were obviously undeniably close to them, but you’ve just given that quality of team too much belief in a game of that magnitude. That will be their regret.
“Everything else was good — it was just the start: you can’t give that.
“You might say, ‘But Rog, you gave Leinster a 17-point start.’ But the Test game is a little bit different in that regard.”
Diving a little bit deeper, O’Gara adds: “What for me is utmost is there’s a strategy and there’s a plan and there’s athletes — but it’s a game of wills; in the head, who’s going to break first on Friday night?
“[Players] are not all mentally super-strong. That’s what happens in top-level sport: someone breaks before the others.”
It’s for this reason that O’Gara expects Ireland to “go after” Antoine Dupont’s deputy, Maxime Lucu, in the biggest start of his relatively short test career.
The absence of the world’s best player “will be an opportunity not only from a playing point of view but a belief point of view,” O’Gara contends.
“It is a very unproven partnership they have started. But if Lucu and [Mathieu] Jalibert get their tails up, watch out because they can tear up anyone. If Ireland can keep them quiet, they probably win the match.”
As for whether another team outside of Friday’s matchup can capitalise on a transitional year in the Six Nations and bank an unlikely championship, O’Gara is more resolute: “No, I don’t think so,” he says.
“The two better teams are playing [on Friday], by a considerable distance. I think Ireland and France are ahead of the other nations. I think that’s been over a long period of time, too. You have the two best teams playing on Friday night, 100%.”
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