Ronan O'Gara: On the off-chance that the Leinster branch read this…

One step closer: La Rochelle Head Coach Ronan O'Gara celebrates with his team in the changing room after the semi-final victory over Racing 92. Pic: INPHO/Dave Winter

SITTING in front of me is a spread-sheet of minutes played by our professional squad this season. It is a riot of colours and numbers, dates, acronyms and abbreviations but the key information is easy to excavate when you match the player and his minutes.

La Rochelle have two massive cup finals ahead of us in the next eight days and getting the decisions right in terms of player load and management may ultimately determine our season.

While it is easy to look over the garden gate at the glitz of the Champions Cup final in Marseille on Saturday week, this weekend’s Top 14 game at home to Stade Francais is every bit as important in terms of prestige and finality.

The starting fifteens for each game may look markedly different as there are up to ten lads who won’t be in the 23 for the Stade game. That doesn’t represent a risk. A risk would be putting in players who very obviously need to be taken out of the firing line. Some of these decisions don’t necessitate stats and spreadsheets. Your eyes and common sense tell you not to mess with tired minds and bodies. The Top 14 season started on September 5 last year. It will conclude on June 25. Data can be useful to corroborate what you see and sense, but it can be overpowering at times, and sometimes you have to separate numbers from the human condition - especially when you are getting into territories where guys have gone four of five weeks in a row of 70-80 minutes.

The players all understand what I meant this week talking about two finals. And that some will play their final against Stade, others will play their final against Leinster. They are, right now, the only definite remaining games left in our season. If we don’t beat Stade, it’s virtually certain the game tomorrow week in Marseille is our last of the campaign.

There is a large constituency of traditional rugby supporters here who would be mortified at the prospect of not making the top six and the barrage (play-offs). And we do not want to begin preparations on Monday for a Champions Cup final having been eliminated from the Bouclier. That’s why tomorrow is all duck or no dinner for us. We go away to Lyon in our last Top 14 game. We need to win there too but anything less than four points tomorrow renders that meaningless.

We go after the two finals minus one of our leaders - Tawera Kerr-Barlow suffered a hand fracture when a Racing 92 player fell awkwardly on him last Sunday in Lens. The injury is across the bos of the hand, and unfortunately, the one action that he can’t manage is passing. It’s a pity because as a rugby fan, I was looking forward to his match-up with Jamison Gibson-Park in Marseille.

There was a time I’d curse our misfortune in this regard and convince myself that the gods of fate were conspiring against us. That the one position you can’t afford an injury is at scrum-half. And then I remember how Razor Robertson schooled me once for being Mr. Glass Half-Empty. This is a challenge and an opportunity, he said, when the Crusaders went to the Hurricanes shy a number of frontliners. And it’s a tremendously exciting one, he re-emphasised (as I stood there, feeling approximately eighteen inches tall).

Thomas Berjon came up through the ranks at La Rochelle, he is an Espoir (Academy graduate). He has been waiting for this moment all his career. And it’s here now for our scrum-half.

The Crusaders won down in Wellington, by the way.

Razor would always say the collective has to supersede the individual. We have nice momentum, but our team performances can still improve. I’d go further. They must get better in terms of consistency. Last Sunday in the Champions Cup semi-final, we were inaccurate and forced too many passes against Racing 92 – which is precisely the opposite of KBA. It’s more Blind Keep Ball Alive (BKBA). We were forcing stuff and getting frustrated though it said a lot for our capacity to dig deep that we could get the win without ever getting out of second gear. Every coach strives for the perfect performance knowing that it’s nigh unattainable, but we need to keep pushing our standards towards that target. Interestingly, the most impressive passage in Lens was the last five minutes when we were most under pressure and managed the game best.

On the off-chance that the Leinster branch read the Examiner, it’s probably unwise to get into too many details but it’s safe to assume we will need tries this Saturday and also to beat Leinster, so the strategy might be mixed - but it will have to be brave. It’s not like we park our advantages either. Just because an opponent knows what’s coming doesn’t necessarily mean they can stop it. To not use an edge would be stupid.

The silver bullet is finding your A-game at this decisive part of the campaign, the MOMO (moment of maximum opportunity). I don’t think we have hit full tilt this season, at least not for a prolonged period, but it’s there and we all realise it. The best solution is to win this weekend and inflate the confidence and the options going into next week and then the last Top 14 game at Lyon. From Monday on, we will make a good plan for Leinster and get the buy-in from the players.

Come this Friday night, when the planning for Stade is complete, I might grab a sneaky look at Leinster’s game at Welford Road and their comprehensive victory over Toulouse, but from what our dressing room said, the reigning champions were going to the well once too often in Dublin against a serious opponent.

Compared to the riot of colour and atmosphere at the Aviva, our semi-final was soporific, the inevitable result of bringing the game to Lens. I don’t think it was a good look for the penultimate game of the biggest club competition in the northern hemisphere, but it’s done and lessons may be learned.

There will be no such issue with the final at the Velodrome in Marseille. European ambition has always been big in Stade Rochelais but some of the younger players will get quite the goosebumps next weekend, as the final last year at Twickenham was limited to a 5,000 attendance First off though, the faithful will gather Saturday at the Stade Marcel Deflandre for what could be our final home game of the campaign. It is an opportunity for La Rochelle to say farewell to a few stalwarts such as Wiaan Liebenberg, Victor Vito, Danny Priso and Mathieu Tanguy. What overwhelms everything, however, is staying alive in the Top 14 and using it as a springboard for our best performance of the season in Marseille tomorrow week.

We are fighting for our Top 14 lives this weekend. That’s a big thing to say. We have the best team spirit now since I’ve been here and that’s an important element to bring into whatever is left this season. There is a deep sense of enjoyment seeing your dressing room doing the business – that’s one of the joys of professional sport.

And we believe there’s a lot of unfinished business in the Top 14 too, so we need to keep momentum going. We are in a good place mentally.

Let’s stay there.