Ronan O'Gara: Good coaches must, first and foremost, be good people
WORKING CLASS HERO: O''Gara and his friend, the late Munster S&C coach Paul Darbyshire, after the Magners League Grand Final in 2011: A man who felt honour-bound to do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Picture: Dan Sheridan, Inpho
How much coffee is too much coffee when you need to sleep? And I need some sleep. There’s a delicate balance to these things. Like how much downtime does a player require when he’s also trying to maintain match sharpness ahead of the biggest game of the season? How many front liners can you rest while also trying to maintain a Top 14 push?
Such balance is informed by priorities. And at this minute La Rochelle’s priority is Twickenham on Saturday week. We’ve just lost two Top 14 games in the space of three days. That’s never good but at times it has to be contextualised. The beauty of where we are is that we are presented with these brilliant dilemmas. Fighting on two fronts is a great problem to have. Only ourselves and Toulouse have it.
