We need to offer more to our provincial rugby stars to keep them

After an excellent article by Ronan O’Gara, I would like to make a personal observation in relation to the writer himself. In my opinion he has been totally underestimated by his own people and received shabby treatment at the end of his career.

Watching the Rugby World Cup recently and reflecting on O’Gara’s contribution to Ireland during his career, I pause before daring to say the following: If O’Gara had been born and reared in New Zealand, surrounded by all the enhancement and development New Zealand has to offer rugby talent, I wonder would Dan Carter have been looking for “Irish ancestors” in order to play international rugby?

Now O’Gara has moved his family to France in order to further his career. Lucky will be those on whose dressing room he knocks.