Old friends are best as O’Gara finds form

RONAN O’GARA is a very different man today compared with the clearly ill-at-ease and unhappy individual who struggled at the Rugby World Cup.

After all that trauma and the adverse and largely unfair criticism that was hurled in his direction at the time, he needed somebody he could trust and who knew him better than most to help him restore the levels of confidence so conspicuously missing during his torrid month in France.

That man was waiting when he returned to Cork. Munster coach Declan Kidney has been one of O’Gara’s closest friends and confidants in good times and bad for the best part of 20 years and it has shown in a hugely telling fashion over the past three weeks or so. If the number ten isn’t already back to his best, then such a welcome occasion is surely just around the corner and O’Gara is quick to recognise the reason why.