Last Saturday's Heineken Champions Cup final saw La Rochelle triumph over Leinster, and with Ronan O'Gara and Johnny Sexton at the forefront, it presented another chapter in the pair's rivalry.
In the lead-up to the decider, La Rochelle head coach O'Gara was glowing in his praise of Sexton, paying tribute to the improvement in his game and pointing to last summer's Lions snub as a motivating factor for the Leinster man.
He said: "That [Lions snub] would have hurt him deeply, so now it’s another example of his excellent resilience that now he’s coming back.
"I think he’s made changes to his game. He’s always been a good passer of the ball but now he’s become a threat again, which he may have put on the back burner.
"You saw against Toulouse, he has a very good running game, a good passing game, a good kicking game and he’s very good at seeing the opportunity before other people see it.
"That’s what a lot of great 10s do. He sees things quicker than other people and he’s able to manipulate his attackers and defenders into space because they’ve got great cohesion amongst them."
Sexton was O'Gara's eventual successor in the No.10 jersey for Ireland and from a personnel point of view, it was almost like-for-like as both players possessed great rugby brains and dynamism, as well as being utterly reliable from placed kicks.
However, given the premium quality of both players and the fact that Sexton was trying to oust one of Ireland's greatest ever players in O'Gara, the transition was not totally smooth and relations between the pair was at one point frayed.
As the younger Sexton was vying for O'Gara's shirt with Ireland, both Munster and Leinster were converging on the European stage and fighting for the big prize towards the end of the noughties.
O'Gara claimed two Heineken Cup titles with Munster in 2006 and 2008, but in 2009 it was the turn of Leinster as they commenced a period of European dominance that then stretched across the following decade.
In Leinster's Heinken Cup semi-final against Munster in Croke Park in 2009, tensions reached a new high as the Reds were shaken to their core and beaten by the up and coming Blues side.
The image that will stick with all rugby fans from that game is that of Sexton stooping down and roaring in O'Gara's face as the latter looked crestfallen following a Gordon D'Arcy try.
Leinster won that battle comprehensively on a score of 25-6 and ultimately went on to clinch their first Heineken Cup success as they defeated Leicester in the final at Murrayfield.
The cut and thrust nature of the rivalry which followed meant that for long periods, the two stars went out of their way to avoid each other.
O'Gara recalled: “It was the trickiest relationship I’ve ever experienced with any player”.
The frosty relationship between O'Gara and Sexton improved somewhat when both found themselves on the books of Racing 92 - Sexton as a player and O'Gara as a coach - soon after O'Gara had taken up a role with the French side.
And in the lead-up to last weekend's final, Sexton even revealed that O'Gara had sent him an audacious text looking to meet him for a cup of coffee on the eve of the final - an invitation he declined due to squad commitments.
He said: “He texted me.
"He just asked if I wanted to meet for coffee but the times didn’t allow.
"Very busy today."
And O'Gara himself had a tongue-in-cheek response to Sexton's no-show, hinting that the Leinster man wasn't overly keen on meeting ahead of the big game.
He said: “I think he’s happier that his hotel wasn’t near mine because he wasn’t too keen on the coffee.”
And consistent with O'Gara's praise of Sexton, the Leinster man was glowing in his appraisal of the job the former Munster out half has overseen at La Rochelle.
He said: “He’s done a fantastic job with them.
“Fair play to him, getting to three finals in a row, that’s a great achievement with a team that historically wasn’t a powerhouse in France."
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