Perfect 10 O’Gara: fly-half shirt there for taking

RONAN O’GARA collected his man of the match award against Scotland yesterday — and then insisted Ireland’s number 10 shirt is there for the taking.

Fly-half O’Gara, playing his 106th game for Ireland, scored a try and three conversions in the 21-18 win yesterday to steady the Irish ship in the wake of defeat to France two weeks ago.

After starting the first two games of the Six Nations campaign this season on the bench as back up to Jonathan Sexton, the Munster veteran justified his first start of 2011 by bringing some more balanced game management to the Irish performance, giving his team the field position from which to launch attacks rather than relying more heavily on running the ball out of their own half as had been the case under Sexton.