Marseille (AFP) - Ronan O'Gara had the last laugh as the former Ireland fly-half coached La Rochelle to European Champions Cup victory over a Leinster side skippered by his successor Johnny Sexton.
La Rochelle's first-ever piece of silverware is the latest feather in the cap for O'Gara, who is fast establishing himself as one of world rugby's most successful coaches.
The nail-biting 24-21 victory in Marseille on Saturday saw O'Gara become just the third person to win the European Cup as a coach and player after current Leinster coach Leo Cullen and Toulouse's Ugo Mola.
After cutting his teeth as defence coach at Racing 92 -- when Sexton was also a player there -- O'Gara touched down at La Rochelle after a successful coaching stint with the Crusaders in Super Rugby with the bold idea of targeting not only the Top 14 title, but also the European Champions Cup crown.
The Top 14 is such a demanding league, only teams with big budgets and squads are really capable of competing on two fronts.
The La Rochelle squad can do just that, featuring a burgeoning group of younger French players alongside France No 8 Gregory Alldritt, All Blacks Victor Vito and Tawera Kerr-Barlow, fellow Kiwi Ihaia West, France props Uini Atonio and Dany Priso, Wallaby Will Skelton and Springboks Raymond Rhule and Dillyn Leyds.
O'Gara introduced a gameplan called 'KBA' (keep the ball alive), but was savvy enough to realise that that is only possible with the presence of some experienced, heavyweight forwards.
"Without, I hope, any resemblance of arrogance, we genuinely believed that we’d win," said O'Gara, who won the Cup twice as a goal-kicking fly-half with Munster, in 2006 and 2008.
"Otherwise, what happened throughout the game, there were ample opportunities to jump ship: 18-10, yellow card.
"Teams with bottle, belief, a vision, find a way to win.The boys deserve immense credit for staying on task."
Second-half team
Sexton kicked six penalties to put Leinster into that 18-10 lead, but even then O'Gara said he was not overly concerned.
"We’re a second-half team, the data says that and as a coach you have to get into that," he said.
"We knew then that Leinster’s last 20 minutes was where we can get them."
O'Gara's plan was shown to be right as La Rochelle dominated the final quarter, Arthur Retiere darting over for the decisive try in the 79th minute.
After the defeat by Toulouse last year and another loss in the 2019 Challenge Cup, the Irish coach said his players had been ready to secure a maiden European trophy.
"You lose two finals and it's a desperate place.They had had enough of competing, they wanted to win," he said.
"Leinster may have had one or two opportunities, but I don’t think there was eight or 10 points left out there."
Sexton, nine years O'Gara's junior, enjoyed keen rivalry in both their battle for the Ireland fly-half shirt and as leaders of their respective Irish provinces.
The Leinster playmaker was left "devastated" by the result at the Stade Velodrome, admitting that perhaps they should have been "more aggressive and gone for tries on a couple of those penalties, because they were repeatedly infringing".
"We came within 60 seconds of it," he said."It's a tough way to lose, in the last second and not even have a chance to come back and try and win the game."
O'Gara sympathised, saying: "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."
Sexton paid credit to La Rochelle, saying they had "come with a plan.I didn’t see them coming back from the lead we had but we didn’t clear our lines well enough and we paid the price".
"It’s an incredibly hard competition to win.When you get to the final it’s the hardest game of the season.Obviously, La Rochelle are a top-class team, we knew they were going to be no different," he said, without mentioning O'Gara by name.
