Ronan O'Gara: On your own you’ll go faster, but together we’ll go further
La Rochelle's Pierre Bourgarit from the defence during a Top 14 match in October. Picture: AFP via Getty Images
When people mention the differences between club and Test rugby, it is usually the precursor to a debate about quality, standards and the extra percentages. There is another huge difference though.
Those in charge of an international team primarily concern themselves with coaching and managing players. In the professional club game, certainly in the case of France’s Top 14, it is a business first and foremost. There are livelihoods at stake, from the kitchen to the dressing room to the board room.
Over the course of the last month, most Top 14 clubs have been chasing targets and contracts on the one hand, and on the other, telling some of their current stock of players it’s time to move on. It is a hard-edged side of this business that no-one thinks about at three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, but the truth is that the hardest bastard in the ruck has nothing on the cold brutality of the professional sports business. You can find yourself trampling over relationships to get the right player in for next season and can look back afterwards wondering was that really you.
It can be horrible.
I am part of a professional business process in La Rochelle that puts a serious emphasis on recruiting the right type of individual. ‘Person over player’ is a pre-eminent consideration in any player business we do. In the new role as head coach, I am more aware than ever that it’s the club’s financial wellbeing is every bit as important as what goes on inside the white lines. I have an annual budget that must go to work and be accounted for down to the last euro.
In building what will be my first squad of signings for next season, there are so many seemingly extraneous factors that must be considered, not least a quota of JIFF (French-qualified) players. The business model in the Top 14 lends itself to a high turnover of players. That places a premium on efforts to gel together a united dressing room, which obviously demands the right sort of individuals to fill it. Nothing, or certainly as little as possible, is left to chance with regard to a potential signing. Rugby’s global network is still fairly compact. It’s easy enough to get a read on a fella, and whether he is the disruptive sort. A bad one can poison your best intentions and the dressing room.
In any professional entity, there are essentially three groups. The core group who believes in the project, a second group which doesn’t always play or feel involved, but ultimately sail or sink the vessel. And the third cohort, invariably disaffected by lack of game time or relationship with the manager, are disruptive and do everything they can to influence the middle tier in a negative way. Their glass is half empty on the way to empty. The key is to pull the middle group towards the doers and away from the moaners. You need that group, otherwise, it’s all uphill.
In terms of La Rochelle’s squad, we have 90% of our business done for next season. That is good in one respect but potentially problematic in another way. For those who will be elsewhere next season, there are six months of the campaign remaining when they have to retain professional integrity and standards, even when they aren’t always involved on matchdays. As a coach, you can find yourself over-tending to some relationships that eat into the energy you should be giving to the group. It’s a balance, and a tough needle to thread.
It’s one of those nuanced bits of the gig I am still a work in progress on. And probably something I have to be better at. When I started on this journey at Racing 92, I probably didn’t fully grasp or appreciate, as an assistant coach, how that played out but there were a lot of good vibes in that dressing room for all the disparate personalities, nationalities and cultures involved.
In Christchurch, the Crusaders have created a best-in-class environment around the club. Same as everywhere else, some guys are disappointed when they are not selected to play, but they channel it really positively. It’s so refreshing and played a significant part in establishing my belief in the right sort of rugby culture. The Crusaders have targeted that over a long period of time and they are a professional outfit in every sense of the word.
When you get values and ambition aligning in the dressing room, you can move mountains. The old line resonates with me every day: On your own you’ll go faster, but together we’ll go further. There is a lot of depth to that sentence.
In that old Munster dressing room, we were all very competitive, and that extended well beyond the 23 in the matchday squad. I didn’t underestimate then, but appreciate even more now, what the other boys did on a Thursday morning session. They gave us a right bellyful. They wanted Munster to win on the Saturday, that’s for certain; they weren’t looking for the man in their position to get injured, or the team to come a cropper on matchday. The very human trait we are all guilty of is not wanting the player in your position to get man of the match, but you still want your team to win.
Behind that dressing room door is the engine that drives ambition. It was always thus, but in so many ways the factory floor has changed beyond recognition, even in the decade since I finished up. The last thing players leave out of their hands before a game is the mobile phone, and it’s the first thing he will pick up afterwards, whether that be for music or what social media is saying about them. I don’t judge. It’s just the culture of the modern individual.
Anyway, I’m nowhere near the dressing room during the week. I stay well away. I’m not wanted there by the players, and that’s as it should be. That’s their sanctuary. Being one of the lads is not my thing. There are different ground rules applying in there, and players have to sort out stuff between themselves. You soon discover the leaders in that environment.
Amid all the Covid disruption of testing etc, there is still the necessity of face-to-face chats with a player, perhaps explaining why he is not involved, or why he won’t be at the club next season. It’s understandable that their perspective might not extend beyond the weekend’s team sheet, but it is always worth pointing out we are not playing a game-ending final this weekend. There is time for every player to be a positive influence. We are 13 games into a 26-game season and there’s European Cup on top of that.
There’s a nice bit of excitement about what we are putting together, now and for next season. There’s been a certain La Rochelle type of signing in the past and maybe we are bucking the trend in that regard, but it’s all about the next step. And the one after that. There is still a small core who are stuck in the Pro D2 mentality, and I struggle with that.
You balance managing some relationships and the time and energy that eats up against the time lost doing what you should be at. That’s the challenge, for the club, for me and for the dressing room. There are enough roadblocks to progress as things are, with this Covid crisis, without going looking for confrontation.
The latest regulations from the French Federation and the LNR have seen the reintroduction of mandatory testing. The Top 14 is big business and the show must go on. If you’ve 19 Covid-free players, the match goes ahead. If you’re negative you play, if you’re not, you’re out. We test again on Friday two days out from the trip to Castres. I confidently predict carnage will ensue across the league, given the surge in positive cases from the new variant.
On that upbeat note, a happy and healthy 2022 to you all.
