O’Gara not looking back in anger
“I have a laugh when I see the videos,” he says. “It’s been a very intense time. I probably played all that time for Ireland as well and it’s been foot to the pedal, constantly trying to improve. The day you don’t try to improve is the day you’ve to step aside, and that’s probably burning inside me now more than ever, in the last few months.
“I’ve been lucky to work with great coaches, and it’s good to get outside influences such as Laurie (Fisher), Tony (McGahan) and Dutchy (Jason Holland), because the perceived opinion usually isn’t the correct opinion.
“You have to be careful who you listen to, who you trust, in my game.”
He acknowledges the “massive loss” of Paul O’Connell this weekend.
“A lot of us haven’t been too aware of it – I presume fellas are texting and ringing him, but as an official group it hasn’t been commented on much, partly because the injury is a little unknown and, as far as I’m aware, Paul himself doesn’t know much about it.
“I spoke to him about it on Tuesday and he said he was feeling a little better, so I presume it’s a day-to-day thing. That’s where we’re at. Paul is a massive loss to any team, but he’s been missing before. He was missing in 2008 when we did well in the Heineken Cup, so we’ve to get on with it.
“He’s missing, and we’re lucky to have Micko (O’Driscoll) stepping up to the plate, but Donncha Ryan is an absentee as well. So is Denis Leamy along with Paul. That’s four hard men we’re missing.”
In O’Connell’s absence, O’Gara takes up the captaincy. He’s forthright about the responsibility.
“I love it. I take my rugby seriously and I like to think I prepare well for games but as captain... it’s sometimes overstated, the role.
“As captain I have a lot of duties on the field in terms of tactics, but any senior player on this squad, if he wants to speak he’ll speak. That’s the beauty of it. It’s a shared responsibility. Obviously when there are crucial decisions the captain takes the blame or the praise, but that comes with the territory, with putting yourself up there.”
Such as deciding whether to go for points or the corner with a penalty?
“Over the years those decisions would be down to me 95% of the time,” he says. “There’d be times I’m overruled, I’d have a feeling for the corner but he’d (O’Connell) would go, ‘points, Rog’. Or tell the ref and not ask me!
“I’ve been in the situation before and the person I’d look to would be John Hayes, which might surprise people, but he’ll give his opinion on it. As an out-half you have a balancing act, pleasing your front five and pleasing the outside backs. If the ball goes out to the backs and they drop it, the pack isn’t going to be happy. If the front five see the ball go into the corner they’ll sprint after it. You have to get the balance right between satisfying Earlsy and satisfying John Hayes.”
The other great thing is the big games, the finals and semi-finals. O’Gara says he and the other veterans benefit from their apprenticeship when it comes to those games.
“It’s knock-out rugby. A lot of us are pushing on now, in our 30s, but as opposed to coming through the academy system we came through the Munster Senior Cup or the All-Ireland League with high-pressure games. That experience is invaluable, and we’ve been in other (European Cup) semi-finals. It’s how you think about the pressure – the older you get the more excited you get.
“There’s confidence there. There has to be. The Magners League is put to bed for a while but we’ve a realistic chance of making the top four in that, but the Heineken Cup is the one the players and supporters want to win.
“You can talk as much as you want, it’ll come down to the 80 minutes and if you can give your best you can live with yourself. That’s how I look at it.”
So it’s all about the result? “One hundred per cent. If I have a shocker and Munster win it doesn’t matter.
“It’s not about me, and it never has been about me.”
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