Ronan O'Gara: When it comes to big games, I like proven form at number ten
READY OR NOT: Leinster head coach Leo Cullen has suffered more than his share of Champions Cup final heartache, says Ronan O'Gara. Pic: Nick Elliott, Inpho
On Wednesday, it was 20 years to the day since Munster won their first Heineken European Cup, in Cardiff against Biarritz.
There will always be keepsakes from a career moment, a life moment. One took place on the steep decline from the changing room to the pitch. ‘We’ve got to play, boys. We’ve got to play.’ The words, simple but the texture and context, unbelievably rich.
We had lost two finals already. We had learned from our failures. Paulie was right, as he almost always was.
In the two losing finals, we didn’t understand what playing in a final really meant. We actually didn’t understand. By May, 2006, we had a firm conviction we are winning this. Even after giving Biarritz a try with the first play of the game…
In that Munster group, most convictions were steadfast and firm. If my family shaped core values, Munster shaped the career ones. Coming from that environment, the journey and the values were old school - hard work, determination and sacrifice, buy-in and sticking at it. You can achieve a lot with those principles.
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Being good at the stuff that takes no talent. Kicking a ball at goal takes a bit of talent but it takes far more in terms of work ethic and repetition. All the great kickers with a process had to work damn hard to get that process functioning to a high level and able to withstand pressure. It took me five years.
What I see now, but was learning then, is that no one at any young age understands what world class looks like. As a coach, you are trying to lead them, to allow them drive their journey however they want.
The most painful thing for any sportsperson is sitting on the couch with aching regret. You have another 50 years of your life to consider why you’ve so many of them regretting yesterday. It’s the only day you can do nothing about. These guys think playing will last forever. It can be an unbelievably good feeling, as tough as it is to retire, knowing that you squeezed everything out of yourself. That you didn’t reach for the easy refuge – the excuse.
Today I look at coaches reaching for that excuse, obfuscating, deflecting, preparing dossiers on referees and their performances instead of concentrating on their own. At times, I’m the pot calling the kettle black in the heat of the moment but you soon settle down and realise the referee doesn’t knock the ball on. If you are so focused on the ills of others, does that mean your own game was flawless? It might to some. But shouldn’t to most.
Leinster are 80 minutes from taking control of the narrative around their legacy, and then they can begin telling everyone again how to play rugby!
There’s a good bit of me wanting Leo Cullen to get over the line because, as a coach, you understand the suffering he has gone through, and it’s not good for any man. From a human standpoint, you would love to see Leinster triumph in Bilbao but sport is ruthless, and they are coming up against a team who, on a dry surface with a dry ball, look like they have too much speed for any team in Europe – Leinster included.
Bordeaux Begles’ big 80 was beating Toulouse in the quarter final, but looking at the tape of the Bath semi, Cullen’s management have plenty to be getting to get their teeth into. If it is wet and sweaty in Bilbao, I’d fancy Leinster, for if nought else it reduces the running and passing options that Mathieu Jalibert delivers on his own.
But Leinster are in unfamiliar territory with sticky form heading into a European final. That doesn’t normally happen. The displays in the last eight and semi-finals will not be enough to win the day against Bordeaux-Begles. Of that I’m sure. The facile sypnosis is creativity versus Leinster’s structured play but this is a final. The talk in France is around being considered a team that’s just different if they win back-to-back Champions Cup, and that’s not necessarily helpful.
Leo had a nibble at the media last week. It was informative and hardly for the fact that he was addressing refereeing decisions a year old. There are more question marks about his team selection than Bordeaux’s, the form of Leinster’s players, and the lingering whiff of that last 15 minutes against Toulon in Dublin when all the old skeletons started lurking menacingly. When you are setting yourself up to succeed in a final, and it’s a one score game approaching the last 15 minutes, are Leinster players going to be able to just play the game, as Paulie said.
It’s a fair charge. Not that Bordeaux are immune to the frailties of the soul. Their performance graph has the capacity to oscillate alarmingly between four out of ten and out of ten. Not least with their mercurial talents of Jalibert and Penaud. The veteran winger is such a feel player.
Of course I understood Cullen’s post-Toulon pop at the media. He’s protecting his environment and trying to deflect from performance. It’s something you learn as you go on. There’s been brilliant insight for me in the way La Rochelle have been assessed in the last six months.
From then to now, I’m the same person, with the same staff, same players. Then we were seen as absolute turkeys, now we are performing well. But there’s no upside to turning your weapons on the press who are accurately reporting on the snakes and ladders of the season. The ref doesn’t knock on the ball. Nor do the lads and ladies with the laptops. We lost to Montpellier, Lyon and Castres at home, and Castres had 13 players on the pitch. It was all recorded diligently and accurately, and I can’t see an upside in rummaging through websites looking for ammo to fire in the media room.
If I have a strength as a coach it might be thinking on my feet, and I’ve learned to play the long game too. But maybe the biggest asset I have is consistency of behaviour, to be me, the same person at rugby as I am at home.
With the season so long in the Top 14, with the amount of games and challenges, it’s so important you don’t wear a mask to work because it would slip. I want players and staff to know precisely who I am. Even if some of them won’t like it.
I’ve written here before, one five minutes of bad form in a meeting can undo six months of good work on the training pitch. The players have only one head coach, but there are 50 players. I can have 50 different conversations (excluding staff), some better than others, but a player only has one head coach to discuss stuff with. And they will remember that conversation and how it went, to the tiniest detail. They chat away among themselves, but between player and coach, it’s one on one. Consistency is so important. Their memories are deadly. Now contemplate multiplying that by 50 conversations or topics or behaviours.
Players work you out fairly quickly. I’ve had scenarios with results and performances dipping where I need to be better at word choice and body language and realise who I am talking to. Not every player is a Tawera Kerr-Barlow, who would be able to accept, reflect and come back better. With others, the message can come across too severe. It can kill him and his confidence. We try to learn and get better every day. Saturday would be a good day to have a good day. For Leo and for Leinster.
But I have to fancy Bordeaux in the final. They have more proven form at number ten; and when it comes to big games, I like proven form at number ten. For European Cup finals, as a coach you prefer building a plan of certainty around the half backs. You’ll get it from Jamison Gibson Park but the Bordeaux combo is reliable, Maxime Lucu’s kicking metres and length are better than anyone in Europe at moment - and in cup rugby, that’s a massive asset to pleasing your forwards.
That could be where the difference is.
