LONG READ ‘There is only one Irish job that Ronan O’Gara desires, and it is not Leinster’

“We’re seen as the little team, but that is about to change.” In May 2023, Ronan O’Gara broke Leinster’s hearts for the third straight season, and led Stade Rochelais to back-to-back Champions Cups. Still, he had something to get off his chest.

O’Gara’s La Rochelle side, he felt, had been given short shrift when coming to Dublin to face Leinster in the Champions Cup final. The reigning champions, ROG believed, had been treated like second-class citizens.

“There was a little bit of that in terms of Leinster being the home team – accommodation for the families, post-match gigs,” O’Gara said. “Leinster are seen as the home team. We’re here in Lansdowne (Road) and we can’t get a room in this place.”

That 2023 final, which La Rochelle won 27-26 after at one stage trailing 17-0, had bad blood coursing through it. Gregory Alldritt took umbrage with opposing captain James Ryan holding eye contact for too long at the pre-match coin toss. There was a half-time scuffle in the tunnel, involving coaches and players. Three yellow cards were brandished and Leinster’s Michael Alaalatoa copped a costly late red. Injured Leinster captain Johnny Sexton would later receive a three-match ban for berating the match officials, in his civvies, after the match ended.

That was the peak of Leinster’s rivalry with La Rochelle. The team from the west coast of France were responsible for denying Leinster their fifth Champions Cup title, three times on the bounce. Leinster were demolishing sides in pursuit of that fifth star to stitch above their crest, then running into a black and yellow wall.

The years that have followed have seen Leinster gain small measures of revenge, beating O’Gara’s side twice in the competition’s pool stages and, in 2024, annihilating them 40-13 in the quarter-finals (en route to another final loss, against Toulouse).

Leinster shrugged a giant monkey from their back, only to load up new burdens. Stuart Lancaster moved on. Sexton retired. They remembered successful drops at goal get you three points, but suffered from lack of practice. Jacques Nienaber joined Leo Cullen at Leinster but the province only have one league title to show for their past four seasons of largely positive, progressive rugby.

There is only one prize for Leinster this year that will satisfy supporters and ease the mounting pressure – return to Bilbao this May and win another Champions Cup on Spanish soil.

The pressure remains firmly on Leinster, despite their United Rugby Championship title last season. Shorn of their many, many British & Irish Lions stars, they got off to a humbling URC start in South Africa before alarm bells were raised when they lost to Munster at Aviva Stadium. Nienaber was accused of making a ‘come and get me’ plea to South Africa, after telling SuperSport he missed his old Springboks crew. The double World Cup-winning coach insisted his loyalty lies with Leinster, but is not hiding that his contract expires in the summer of 2027. “I’m not saying I’m a saint in any way,” he noted, “but I feel people don’t trust my integrity.”

Nienaber was asked last month if he intended to see out the full term of his Leinster contract. He replied: “If they don’t fire me, yes. Yeah.”

Leinster vs La Rochelle has been box-office for the past five years, but Saturday’s fixture does not quite have the same bite, or draw. Leinster are fifth in the URC, while La Rochelle lie seventh in the Top 14 standings. O’Gara’s side lost 42-21 to the Stormers in their Champions Cup opener. There will be more than 35,000 at Aviva Stadium this weekend, but past seasons may have pushed it closer to a sell-out affair.

There is only one prize for Leinster this year that will satisfy supporters and ease the mounting pressure – return to Bilbao this May and win another Champions Cup on Spanish soil. Leinster last lifted the trophy there, in 2018, and seemed destined to overtake Toulouse as Europe’s greatest club side. Since then, Toulouse have won their fifth and sixth Champions Cups while Leinster have lost in four finals. They are stuck on four and their big-match mettle has been openly questioned.

It was suggested this week that the IRFU should do all in their power to get O’Gara in at Leinster. The Irish Independent claims O’Gara’s best route to the Ireland job would be taking on a big provincial job and coming up through the system. With Clayton McMillan bedding in at Munster and Nienaber’s future uncertain beyond June 2027, luring O’Gara home with a prime offering is certainly worth the union’s consideration.

O’Gara taking over at Leinster would be akin to former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard being unveiled as Manchester United’s new manager.

There was a good moment on Off The Ball, earlier this week, when Biarritz director of rugby James Coughlan was brought up to speed on that ‘O’Gara for Leinster’ story. O’Gara’s former Munster team-mate broke into a smile. “There’s been a lot of talk,” said Coughlan, “and it hasn’t been coming from ROG.”

O’Gara taking over at Leinster would be akin to former Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard being unveiled as Manchester United’s new manager. The 48-year-old is fondly regarded by Irish rugby supporters but it might be too much to take for Leinster fans – seeing their old tormentor taking the reins of their club. Munster fans may require mass sedation, too.

As recently as last year, O’Gara was taking pops at Leinster fans that booed him at Aviva Stadium when their side had raced into that massive, early lead in the 2023 Champions Cup final. In Brendan Fanning’s book, Touching Distance, O’Gara recalled: “These are people who know nothing about me, half of them, who have arrived late in the day to support the boys in blue. There are lots of sound Leinster fans, but these f***ing knob jockeys in their Brown Thomas gear are giving us the finger as we are in the coaching box.” O’Gara has no grá (love) for a lot of what goes on in and around Leinster.

To my mind, there is only one Irish job O’Gara wants. It is the one currently held by Andy Farrell. The Munster legend is contracted with La Rochelle until the summer of 2027, too, and has assured the club he will no longer be publicly commenting on other coaching gigs. Rather than dead-bat queries from reporters in recent years, O’Gara has been very open on his coaching ambitions, particularly when it comes to international rugby. However, after being heavily linked to the England, Scotland, France and Australia head coach jobs in a short span of time, O’Gara has wisely opted to pocket his bread crumbs.

In 2024, after Graham Rowntree departed Munster, O’Gara distanced himself from a role with his old province. “Munster is in my heart but not my head now,” he wrote in his Irish Examiner column. “Besides, I would hope my next coaching move is into the Test arena.”

O’Gara wants to be head coach of Ireland. That has been one of his long-held goals, ever since he hung up his playing boots in 2013. He was assistant coach at Racing 92 when they won a Top 14 title, before moving to New Zealand and helping Scott Robertson’s Crusaders to a couple of Super Rugby triumphs.

His greatest success has been transforming La Rochelle into a Top 14 and Champions Cup powerhouse. He was backed by the club’s top brass to bring in leading players and invest heavily in developing young talents and facilities. The reward was two European titles. In 2023, they were two minutes and one dash of Romain Ntamack brilliance away from winning a Champions Cup and Top 14 double.

The Cork native would be justified in feeling he has done more than enough to merit a shot as Ireland head coach. Next man up. There should be no need to first come home to do four years at one of the provinces in the hope of maybe succeeding Farrell (or Simon Easterby or Paul O’Connell) in 2031.

Here is a fact. The Lions want Andy Farrell to lead the way in New Zealand, in 2029. He impressed the head honchos so much in Australia, and in the months leading up to the tour, that his name is already pencilled in for the next southern hemisphere mission. Any union that wants Farrell to be their main man, over the next World Cup cycle, should take it as read that he would require another long Lions sabbatical.

Some within the union may see O’Gara as a risky appointment. He frequently says exactly what is on his mind and has collected a fair few touchline bans and fines during his time in France.

Following the 2027 World Cup with Ireland, Farrell may wish to stay on, or he could go down the Warren Gatland (2021) route and step away from overseeing a national team to recharge before plotting a course for toppling the All Blacks.

My sense is O’Gara sees 2027 as the ideal time to strike for that Ireland job. Farrell will have had two cracks at the World Cup and either him, the IRFU, or both, may be keen for a change.

Some within the union may see O’Gara as a risky appointment. He frequently says exactly what is on his mind and has collected a fair few touchline bans and fines during his time in France. Easterby is the safe option, while others involved with the IRFU would love a coaching ticket led by O’Connell and Sexton.

As for Leinster, should Nienaber move on in 2027, Sexton would be in the mix for a senior coaching role, but the likes of Richie Murphy at Ulster and Noel McNamara at Bordeaux are making strong cases for themselves. If they have their hearts set on a former Crusaders coach, Leinster fans may prefer to see Robertson taking over, rather than their old nemesis, O’Gara.