Ronan O'Gara: You need more than a sheet of paper to pick a team

Sometimes it comes back to the old riddle: you want a player with talent and a moderate work rate, or a grafter with limited talent? (Answer: well, he has to have the talent…)

MOTIVATION: La Rochelle’s Antoine Hastoy scored 20 points against Sale last Sunday. 

HOW does one go about selecting a match-day squad? In front of me is a laptop and a spreadsheet of player-load data so dense it would make your eyes bleed. These are the statistics that can inform every decision if you elect to run a squad on autopilot. The data will direct you between the white lines for match day but without the critical nuance, instinct and basic gut feeling that is derived from hard-won and painful experience. Billy Beane wasn’t altogether right. Ignoring what your eyes tell you is a blunder of seismic proportion.

So there’s this one player. And he will play against Toulon on Saturday night in the Top 14 but I’d rather he didn’t. Last Sunday in Manchester, I asked him and others to go to the well again. The carrot was the danger of handing over our European crown after two years by losing to Sale. Good luck and goodnight. It was a pool game with a knockout punch. That excites everyone’s instinct. Now I need him again but you can’t keep beating the same drum.