Ronan O’Gara is one of the few people I’m still in touch with from the 2009 British & Irish Lions tour. I got on well with him and I really enjoy chatting to him about his rugby philosophy and how he sees the game. I remember seeing him the day before La Rochelle beat Leinster in last season’s final and it’s easy to say in hindsight but there was a real confidence in him about what his team can achieve. I suspect it’ll be similar this season too.
I’ve chatted to him sporadically over the last couple of years and I’ve been blown away by his aspirations, what he demands of himself and the things he thinks he can go on to do. I’m not surprised because I think he’s capable but it’s just the clarity and the confidence that he has. When you are the head coach or the leader and you have confidence, which isn’t manufactured but inherently how you feel, then it is so much easier to pass that message on and for it to filter down to your squad.
He’s a highly impressive human being and a coach who will no doubt operate at this level for a long time. He’s one of very few people who have travelled the world by coaching at Racing 92, the Crusaders, spending some time in Fiji and then heading to La Rochelle. He gathered information and brought it back and made it a real success. Maybe it’s a lesson for other coaches.
It wasn’t a well trodden path, it’s not like there was a blueprint that he was following, he just went and did it himself but that has always been his attitude. He just goes and gets things done. He’s been in some incredibly high-performing teams and immersed himself in the rugby and the culture. That is important because modern coaches are really good at understanding people. Every rugby player has a talent but it is the person who drives that talent, so if you don’t get to know the person you’re not going to get the best out of the talent and he understands that. Some of the more experienced coaches are realising that and are having to adapt, for all the rugby IQ they have.
At La Rochelle, O’Gara has built an eclectic squad and it is an illustration of his coaching experience. His team is this patchwork quilt of players from around the world. O’Gara was voted Champions Cup player of the decade not that long ago and he was a magician but he wasn’t a megastar. I look at his team and there probably isn’t a poster boy but maybe their strength is the collective. He’s been able to aggregate so much complementary quality and that is the job of a good head coach. That comes down to recruitment and selection and he seems to nail those two things.
That said, La Rochelle are still brimming with quality and have a knack of bursting into life. There’s a really lovely feeling when you’re Antoine Hastoy, Tawera Kerr-Barlow, Jonathan Danty or Raymond Rhule when quality is passing to quality. You can chase the shoulders of players who do special things and have confidence you’ll get on the ball. Chris Ashton hit 100 Premiership tries and he made a career out of chasing quality rugby players. He was so instinctive at tracking really good players and reaped rewards. La Rochelle have players who can cause absolute damage and players like that, you want to get on their shoulders so in turn they come alive in anticipation of that.
There is a desperation about Leinster to finally get their hands on their fifth title, they’ve had the benefit of playing all their knockout matches at the Aviva Stadium, but desperation is not something you can rely on in elite sport. The one question mark still hangs over Leinster and it is how they can handle a team as physically dominant as La Rochelle. You can figure it out in certain situations, they’ll be fine in the scrum but Leinster struggled with Toulouse’s driving maul and La Rochelle’s is better. Leinster historically struggle against big men around the park and La Rochelle possess these unique rugby specimens who are so hard to combat. Will Skelton is one – rugby can change as much as it likes but physicality will always be top of the list, all the more so when you are 140kg. Levani Botia is another, Danty too; they are three very special humans on a rugby pitch who are incredibly destructive. No one has really been able to solve that puzzle – you can’t put on 30kg in a fortnight. You can look at double tackles and all the rest of it but La Rochelle will be happy if Leinster are overcommitting.
Leinster want to play a high-tempo game and run them ragged. Exeter did a reasonable job of it at times in the semi-final but, while I can’t speak from experience, I reckon the hardest thing on a rugby field is defending a driving maul. So when we talk about tiring teams out there are many ways to do it. Running around at a high tempo is one of them but so is having an energy-draining pack that will sap the oppositions’ legs. I challenge anyone to go scrum against a tree for 30 seconds and feel like sprinting at the end of it. If Leinster can find a way to take that strength away from La Rochelle then they have a great chance. I’m just not too sure that they can.
