WITH THE CHAMPIONS Cup sitting proudly at the front of the table, Ronan O’Gara tried to make sense of a thrilling, at times chaotic Heineken Champions Cup final in which his La Rochelle team stormed to an historic win over Leinster and land major silverware for the first time.
O’Gara’s team were competing in the final for the second year running having come up short against Toulouse last season, also losing the Top 14 final to the same opposition.
“You lose two finals and it’s a desperate place, so my first reaction would be I understand how Leo (Cullen), Stuart (Lancaster), Felipe (Contepomi), Robin (McBryde) and Denis (Leamy) feel. It’s a horrible, horrible position to be in because the only time we led the game was in the 80th minute, and they didn’t even get the chance to kick-off which is a kick in the balls,” O’Gara said.
“When you become a coach it’s lonely, it’s quite isolated, and that’s the ruthless side of the Champions Cup final. You’d have to spare a thought for those guys and their players tonight.”
In turning attention to his own team, who delivered a brilliant, spirited performance at the Stade Vélodrome, O’Gara praised the mental strength of his players.
“Our mindset was great. For people who don’t believe you learn things in (losing) finals we have ample proof that it does happen, it does work. We learned from our mistakes but as Greg (Alldritt) said, and he has been brilliant all week in how he laid the players to believe that this is going to happen.
“Without I hope any semblance of arrogance, we genuinely believed that we would win today and otherwise what happened throughout the game there was ample opportunities to jump ship – 18-10, yellow card. But teams with bottle, belief, a vision, find a way to win and the boys deserve immense credit for staying on task.
“I think we caused them a little bit of problems in the first-half yet we didn’t probably get the reward. We were inaccurate around our understanding what he (Wayne Barnes) wanted with tackle and get out. We got penalised and we gave them easy entries into our half of the pitch.
”Then a five metre scrum, a decision against us that our loose-head took it down and then they went the length of the pitch as classy teams do, and they came away with three points, but that could have been seven. That could have been a big moment.
”There were one or two boys sulking at half-time at 12-7 but I said to them that before the game if we could sign a 12-7 I’d sign it, because we knew that we’re a second-half team. The data says that and as a coach you have to get into that even though I prefer the human side of the game, but we knew that Leinster’s last 20 is where we can get them.
“We talk about fine margins and then I’m just trying to explain why the boys were so mentally strong in the last few minutes because you go off your feet at any of those 150 pick and goes it’s a penalty against us. That’s the cup gone and then we’re a team of bottlers. Three finals and we can’t get over the line.
”What pleases me the most is I’m very proud of them. I’m very proud of their mental resolve and it’s a great starting point for the club.”
Get instant updates on your province on The42 app. With Laya Healthcare, official health and wellbeing partner to Leinster, Munster and Connacht Rugby.
