Ronan O'Gara: Some weeks it's clearer that sport is about relationships more than the finished product
RESPECT: Jockeys observe a minute's silence at Punchestown on Thursday in memory of Michael O'Sullivan (Healy Racing)
I’ve lost four games in a row, but who really gives a fuck? That’s crude, but it’s probably where most of us went to this week.
A lot of us might have set out on Sunday bugged by smaller questions. About fixing a lineout or whatever it is. Then news dropped about Mikey O’Sullivan and instead we ask ourselves why do we do this? Why does it mean so much? Why is sport so powerful when it can end this brutally?
A fella gets up on a horse and never comes home. No warning. No fairness. It’s under the same definition as what we do. Sport. I keep thinking about Mikey. I know he enjoyed his rugby. Loved Munster. And poor John Cooney, chasing his dreams in the ring. I keep thinking about Jack de Bromhead in that beach race.
Racing and boxing are dangerous games. Rugby is too. Raymond Rhule is a really good guy. He had to retire this week. You’re going to the boys, ‘this could be you’. You may never play again.
If a maul collapses badly and your neck is in the wrong position, it’s over. With the power of guys now, collisions could lead to death. If the game continues the way it is, that’s not far from reality.
But we can’t stop. That’s the drug isn’t it? For Mikey and John and Jack, everything has stopped, for the families as well. It’s such a brutal end and sports people find it so hard to accept.
I’ve been writing for 10 years in the Examiner, would you believe. It’s a team effort too. God knows I need help. Guidance. Bending into shape. Somebody to take out a few fucks. To ask if I’m sure about this or that. Between me and the page, there’s people who don’t get a pat on the back. There’s relationships.
Some weeks it’s clearer than others how sport and life is more about relationships than the finished product.
Four defeats in a row. As a team, La Rochelle are in a negative spiral. There are negative voices everywhere. In periods like this, that’s what you heed. The voice telling you what’s gone wrong is the one voice you hear. Behind that there could be 10 positive people drowned out.
Runs like this are funny things. They don’t belong together as neatly as four Ls can look. After the first one - against Leinster - I was full of hope. We lost but it was our best performance of the year. Bizarrely, I remember going home saying, I can build a season out of this.
Then with a lot of the same players you go to Treviso. Always a banana skin. You think you've the boys prepped. But they’ve used a lot of emotional energy against Leinster. We get beat. You’re going, fuck lads, we’ve already used our joker, as they say here. Why can’t we anticipate problems quicker? Why can’t we be better?
We had Toulon then. A load of young fellas. But we were exceptional, ran into a 17-point lead. Then completely ran out of juice on 50 minutes. Still in the game after 70, but the referee… I’ve got in enough trouble. We lost by 24 points but it was never like that.
Then last week, you’re away to Lyon on a synthetic pitch. Will you have lads back from injury? Maybe. You get some guys in the medical room calculating games. I won’t be alright for Lyon, but I’ll be alright for Racing at home. Which is bollocks. That feeds into the culture of the club.
Of course you know this week you’ll have a reaction, Racing at home. But we’ll go to Stade Francais then. Another synthetic pitch. If we haven’t learned… There’s only 10 games left. ONLY. That’s plenty time to get better but we need to get our shit together.
These weeks the big questions are probably the most important. What do you stand for? What essentially do you want out of this?
Racing took Mikey’s life but it was his life, what he stood for, what his family stands for. The competitiveness in him, the friends he made, the relationships he built, the joy he got out of it, the joy his relations got out of his success.
He loved his rugby and I love my racing. When you’re in the middle of it, you don’t really think about the people watching on. When he was winning those races at Cheltenham, he probably never thought about how much he inspired the likes of me, more than 20 years older than him.
April 5th. It’s what I stand for. You’re on a losing stretch but you’re still longing for the Munster game.
You’re hoping your team will be in form. You’re playing the team that gave you the best feelings in the world. In your new home. It’s the connection, the relationships, the reputation you’ve earned with the Munster fans that means so much. That they're coming over.
You’re sick of the Leinster games where they have nothing in common with you really. To be the best you have to beat them, but it’s not the same.
Munster are finding again what they stand for. You just want the best team to come through that game. Without having that drive in you to earn that respect from your own, you stand for nothing.
You spend so long building that reputation, trying to be the best version of yourself. Poor Mikey, two Cheltenham winners, just getting going building his reputation. And there I am sulking after four games. Get your shit together man, you can go home to your family and have your dinner.
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Millenium Stadium Saturday. Hands up, I’m struggling to get my head around it this week. I’m not there yet. Saturday morning maybe I will be. It’ll be poignant too. It’s the place where I’ve had the most memorable days of my life as a player. A place where I learned a lot about what I stand for.
It’s where the final of the European Cup will be played this year. That’s so far away from our form at the minute. Yet sometimes you drift towards it. That’s how we’re wired. Dreaming. That’s all it is at the minute. But don’t we love to dream? Aren’t you lucky to have the capacity to dream? If you don't dream how can you inspire people?
It’s too easy when everything is rosy that you play those cards. Now my fellas have to see I’m up for the fight. That I can lead them where they want to go even though there is no current data, no possible indicator that would put us anywhere near a European Cup final right now. You have to turn that negative into a positive. That’s what rugby has taught me and what life has taught me.
Saturday. I’m not in the space to dig deep, but this is how I see it. The result isn’t in doubt but just beware of a team who can get a bounce.
It’s subsconscious. The board got Gatland out, but it’s really the players who get every coach out. A 14-match losing streak is horrible. As a player you can throw sideways glances towards the coaching box. Roll your eyes. But then there comes that time when you have to take responsibility too and look inward.
This will be the first time these Welsh lads get that. A caretaker coach. In one sense, it’s all back on them. If they get a bounce and an early break they can make it difficult for longer than it should be. The Welsh boys too can get in touch with what they stand for.
