Rog ready for Volley and record

THE MOST influential player the Heineken Cup has seen since its inception in 1995/96?

Has to be Ronan O’Gara, the Munster out-half, who this evening plays his 50th match in the competition, and will, with a bit of luck, become the record points scorer to boot. Since first capped against Harlequins in 1997, O’Gara has been a towering figure; indeed it is not unreasonable to say that without his enormous contribution, Munster would not have reached the knock-out stages every year from 1998.

Perhaps that’s why he finds himself targeted by the opposition and consequently all too often in the eye of a storm. Last year’s head-to-head with Gloucester’s Duncan McRae, the man who beat him black and blue during the 2001 Lions tour, comes immediately to mind. His clash this evening with the volatile Castres No 8 Paul Volley can be put in a similar category, although everybody associated with Munster is adamant there will not be a problem today, just as there wasn’t 12 months ago when McRae entered the Limerick fortress.

Volley tried a few dodgy tricks during and after last week’s game to put O’Gara off his game. True to form, Rog insists the incidents were blown out of all proportion. “I’ve absolutely no problem with the physical abuse. The verbals at the goal kicking disappointed me, he was talking as I was lining up the kicks. The referee said it to him and it wasn’t an issue after that. I don’t know whether he stopped, I was too focused on the kicks to worry about it any more.”

“What did he say?” I wondered. “Yours is a family paper and it’s not to be printed”, Ronan responded. That bad?

“That’s all I’ve got to say, he’s got a job to do as well” came the response. “There’s no issue and I’m just looking forward to the weekend.”

We move on to how he feels about winning his 50th Heineken Cup cap for Munster and being within five points of the record number of points scored in the competition by Diego Dominguez. “Fifty appearances in the Heineken Cup is nice to achieve but you move on and what’s important is that we beat Castres.”

O’Gara, still only 27, is so committed to Munster and so absolutely sure of his place for the foreseeable future that he might in time get very close to the 100 mark. It has also seen him run up the magnificent total of 640 points in the red jersey, just five behind Dominguez, who played six matches for Milan and lined out 36 times with Stade Francais. O’Gara is one of four players to be presented with a glass crystal boot for reaching 500 points in the competition - the others being Dominguez, Stephen Jones of Llanelli and Neil Jenkins of Pontypridd, Cardiff and Celtic Warriors.

Today’s 50th appearance puts him up there in the company of some of the elite players in the European game, people like team-mates Anthony Foley, John Kelly and John Hayes; Victor Costello and Shane Byrne of Leinster; Chris Wyatt and Robin McBryde (Llanelli), Fabien Pelous and Christian Labit (Toulouse) and Graham Rowntree (Leicester).

A new points record, he believes, is a far bigger achievement than gaining 50 Heineken Cup caps. “The way the game has gone, goal kickers are important and to score that number of points is a good indication of consistency through the seasons. Dominguez was terrific, an outstanding kicker who on his day was well able to create and defend. It would be a nice achievement to surpass him.”

Asked to jog his memory about his first appearance in the red jersey, Ronan wondered if it might have been Harlequins away in 1998. When reminded that was the day Mick Galwey landed a handsome uppercut on Keith Wood, he suddenly sat up and said ... “yeah, I was playing that day, that was it.” Moving forward, he not surprisingly fastened on the memorable 31-25 defeat of Toulouse in Bordeaux in 2000.

“It was a sunny day with a dry ball and we beat Toulouse at their own game”, he enthused. “The public mightn’t have expected us to do it but that wasn’t the case within the team itself. They were the team of all the talents but there was fair ambition in our side. It was great to get a try. I just trailed Dominic (Crotty) and remember him giving me a nice pass and scoring under the posts. The move began in our 22 and showed our ambition. We all wanted to play in that kind of game in those conditions and on a pitch like that. The Heineken Cup encompasses all four seasons in the one rugby season and that’s probably what makes it a good competition, though the quality of rugby improves when you hit March and April.

“That day marked our arrival in the big time.”

As the rugby world now knows, the victory in Bordeaux was followed by the trauma of Twickenham and the 9-8 defeat by Northampton. O’Gara shaved the posts with a couple of second-half penalties, something that only serves to show how little there is between glory and failure.

“That was the biggest disappointment,” he agrees. “It was the easiest Heineken Cup to win because the standards have risen so much since then. It was the one that escaped. But that disappointment creates a huge hunger inside you to succeed and I think all of us still have that.

“Leicester in Cardiff was a good final, we played well, we just weren’t good enough on the day so there are no excuses.”

When reminded of Neil Back’s illegal and unsporting intervention late in the game, O’Gara quickly retorted: “If one of our fellas did it, he’d be a hero.” When it was put to him that it was out and out cheating, a wicked smile spread across Ronan’s face as he simply confessed: “I’d do it.”