Ronan O'Gara has revealed how he had to stay strong as doubters reckoned he was 'out of his depth' in his first job as a head coach.
The Corkman has silenced the critics after overcoming a tough start to his triumphant first season as La Rochelle's new head coach.
Although he brought an already glittering coaching CV to Les Maritimes, O'Gara knew that doubters were questioning his appointment after he was part of a disappointing end to the previous season and a slow beginning to this one.
O'Gara was assistant coach to Jono Gibbes as La Rochelle lost the Champions Cup final and then Top 14 final to French opponents and he quickly perceived that the pressure was on.
To come back from that, learn the lessons and become champions of Europe for the first time is hugely satisfying for the 45-year-old.
"Yeah, you've no idea," O'Gara said. "There's no point saying otherwise, it's exactly why you suffer in silence and isolation for seven days after Toulouse (in the Champions Cup final) and on a double front, too.
"Mentally it has a huge impact getting beaten in back to back finals.
"Summer wasn't easy, pre-season planning wasn't easy, we lost four of the five games at the start of the season so supporters were going, 'This guy is probably out of his depth'.
"But I don't think the players panicked, I don't think the staff panicked and to think we went on a journey to Europe with a very, very, very narrow victory against a very, very classy team is very pleasing.
"The Marseille venue added a lot to it, I think. There was a great atmosphere with not a lot of neutral supporters there. It really felt like one of those special Munster...I mean, special European occasions!
"There are so many similarities with the loyalty of La Rochelle fans and Munster fans, starting off this journey. I remember Gaillimh (Mick Galwey) saying, 'we want to try and keep Toulouse under 50 points'.
"Like, less than 18 months ago we got beaten 49-0 points in Racing - there isn't much logic to what has happened since if you look at that day."
Asked what was going through his head during that slow start to the campaign, O'Gara told OTB AM: "Genuinely I was OK.
"They were desperately difficult fixtures but I could see the hangover affecting people differently.
"If you don't process the depth of hurt involved in losing two finals then you're missing something, so for me the start of the season was always going to be slow.
"It's an 11 month season in France, all coaches are looking for intensity but it's impossible to have that over an 11 month season, it just doesn't work, you're going to blow up, so what you learn is to time your run, when to push them and squeeze them and other times to cut them a bit of slack.
"What we got right this year is I've big on time off, I want to give them as much time away from the place and holidays as possible, which other people might say, 'Oh, they're on a bit of a freebie here' or 'his leash is too loose with these boys'.
"But I think they like that, they like coming in.
"Another lesson that worked from my time with Munster was Cork-Limerick, people said it would never work but it was brilliant, we only saw the Limerick boys twice a week but there was always freshness and new stories and that capacity to interest your team-mate.
"If you have the same faces and are doing the same routine day after day after day, it becomes monotonous.
"Your try to bring a new spark to it, boys like playing games they're not really interested in training."
O'Gara elaborated: "I think the European Cup was the fantasy competition, people thought that could never happen, but one day they dreamt of winning the bouclier.
"And it was the manner of it as well, it was a bit of a fairytale ending to be fair. It's very rarely that happens in sport.
"You contrast that with 12 months ago in Twickenham (in the Champions Cup final loss to Toulouse), we felt we had a legitimate penalty not given.
"And the emotions that come with that the following week as opposed to what happened on Saturday when the reality is there's nothing between the two teams, literally nothing - immediately you'd have a feeling for Leo (Cullen) and Stuart (Lancaster) and Denis Leamy and Robin (McBryde) because I know exactly how they're feeling.
"As usual there's an over-reaction probably to what went wrong for them and right for us. But I know it could so easily have been them, we could have been zero out of three in big finals and the fact is that mentality, we don't have it, so the margins are absolutely tiny."
O'Gara also spoke about the messages he has received since the breakthrough success.
"It's been incredible, people from all over the world and it's been really, really touching, people have come out of the woodwork and it's been so powerful," he said.
"When you're in it you don't appreciate what you've done, but it's important to step back and if you're not touched by those scenes in the port, it was very, very special.
O'Gara smiled as he reflected on the memorable scenes that greeted the arrival of the La Rochelle team bus home and the celebrations that went on for several days.
He said: "They were good, they were tough!
"It's a big part of why you get involved in it too, from the dressing room afterwards and when you get a bit older, you see the pleasure you've given the people of La Rochelle.
"When you're a player you miss all that, you're consumed by yourself and your team-mates.
"When you've no mates and you're re down the back of the bus you can see what it means to the people.
"Yeah it was cool, it was really cool. That's powerful. We were blown away.
"Many years ago, I remember when the Tour de France was very popular in Ireland, when it got to the mountain stages you got the images of the guys on the bikes literally being helped up the mountain
"And it was literally like that with the bus, it was being helped through the port by the locals - very, very powerful scenes.
"You strip it back a little bit and there's a bus here, it's the immovable object and e people shouldn't be in its way yet they wanted to touch it, they wanted to throw scarves, jerseys, whatever they could to the plays.
"Eight years ago the team was Pro D2 so the Champions Cup has blown them away - 'on the roof of Europe', they were talking about it over here.
"To be put in the same category as Leinster or teams like that for La Rochelle, it's very, very hard for them to understand that.
"And with that the next three weeks are very important too, I'd like to think we start a new journey this weekend away Lyon, we are potentially threw weeks away from being champions of France, that's the bouclier (Top 14 title), that's where the history and the love (comes from)."
O'Gara paid tribute to the Leinster fans he met in Marseille who warmly congratulated his side's success, despite their own disappointment, and to Leo Cullen and his Blues staff.
"The Leinster management are class, they came for a beer in the dressing-room afterwards and it was classy to do that," said the former Ireland no 10.
"It's a mark of them as men, the easy thing to do was to stay in their own dressing-room but they did what they felt was right and it was well appreciated by everyone."
Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email alerts
