O’Gara savours magical first drop

THE first drop goal of his international career and what an important one!

Ronan O’Gara isn’t usually the most demonstrative of players but when his 40 metre drop kick sailed between the Millennium Stadium posts in the 82nd minute of Saturday’s thriller, he allowed himself a mighty leap of delight and an ecstatic punch of the Cardiff air.

O’Gara had suffered weeks of frustration when the call finally arrived in the 70th minute. It was hardly the ideal time to come into the game, with the dragon spewing fire and the shamrock visbly wilting. The men in green were hanging on desperately to a single point advantage, 22-21. What happened next is the stuff of dreams and ensured Ronan’s special place in the annals of the Irish game. THAT drop goal will be spoken of for many a long day.

“If you start a match you’re into it straight away but after 60 minutes it was an awful place to be,” said O’Gara. “It’s not easy coming on like that, but of course I was delighted to get back in there. It was a dodgy scoreline at that stage and I felt the game could have turned against us. ”

Ronan was hardly in the match when it was turned on its head by Stephen Jones’s drop goal.

“An excellent effort it was, too, from long range,” acknowledged O’Gara. “I looked over at Drico (Brian O’Driscoll) but he couldn’t talk he was so wrecked so I badgered the ref to know how much there was to go and he said two minutes. That doesn’t give you an awful lot of time to restart and get a score. I was so pumped up the kick probably went 10 or 15 yards longer than I expected. Fair play to Mal (Malcolm O’Kelly), he got up there and got a touch. Strings popped up and I was surprised there was nobody from Wales around me because they would be onside from a breaking ball like that.

“I didn’t expect the pass quite so quickly. I just chanced my arm. It struck me that I was nearly directly in front and though the ball got shot halfway through its flight, it managed to stay on course. It was my first drop goal for Ireland.

“Even with the fitness levels we have in this team, it was incredible how shattered fellas were. I was trying to gee them up but I was wrecked after playing just 15 minutes which just emphasised for me the effort everybody had put in.

“It still wasn’t over. The drop goal wasn’t the winning of it, it was our bloody defence at the end, we still had to charge down a drop kick and stuff like that.

“I was certain it was a penalty for the Justin Bishop knock-on because I was on the deck and the ref’s hand seemed to go above head his instead of out to his side, meaning a penalty, but he was only indicating a scrum. It doesn’t get better than that, playing for your country and winning a game like that in a stadium like that.”

It can’t have been easy for O’Gara to stifle the disappointment he has been suffering over the past few weeks but typically he was full of praise for David Humphreys.

O’Gara stressed that there was little or no euphoria at the final whistle. “I was struck by the silence, just fellas shattered,” but he dismissed suggestions that Ireland were lucky to win.

“That was far from the case,” he insisted. “We showed a bit of character. In the past, we might have folded and settled for winning the three games so far. But to get up the other end and score epitomises what this team is about.”