McGahan and O’Connell hail Rog’s mental toughness
“The plaudits? Where do you stop?,” gushed McGahan. “It was an amazing kick at the end of 80 minutes in what was a fast paced game to get yourself in position when the other 14 lads had done the work and then put your hand up to take it. I think we’ve seen other 10s push themselves out of that position, but he put his hand up, said he wanted to do it and it was one of the sweetest strikes we’ve seen for a long time.
“You really want a strong mental conviction, a strong mental toughness, to do that, but he’s been exactly like that throughout his whole career and none more so than now.”
O’Connell said O’Gara typified everything that was good about Munster rugby and stressed it took nerves of steel to try for the winning points. “He relishes those situations, fair play to him. It’s a lovely feeling to know we have a guy that’s back there just dying to get such chances; if Rog could orchestrate every game to be like that, that’s the way he would like it to end.
“I don’t know does every outhalf want that; it’s an example to everyone to have a guy there that long, someone as hungry and willing to fight as much as ever. A lot of players don’t lose their skill level, don’t lose fitness or speed, but guys lose that will to fight and Rog has that in abundance, he’s willing to get into a dogfight with anyone and it’s a great thing to have at his age.”
O’Connell also paid tribute to John Hayes, whose appearance in the last quarter was his 100th Heineken Cup outing. “A special player, special guy; to have him around is great, he symbolises that mentality we were talking about, that never say die attitude to try to find a way to win a game.”
Hayes was just one of a bundle of players who contributed – few more than substitutes Denis Leamy and Tomas O’Leary — in the amazing build-up to the winning score, and O’Connell explained the thinking as the clock counted down.
“In that situation you’re looking for a penalty or drop goal, you try to keep the ball in the middle of the pitch as much as you can.”
McGahan heaped praise on O’Connell and the older troops, saying: “The win was really moulded by the senior players who contributed during the week, especially Paul as captain. It’s fantastic the way they’ve really taken over since they’ve come back from the World Cup.”
But he was generous to the younger players too. “That (experience) can’t be put in on the training pitch; you can’t put that in their minds, the need to experience (situations). You get good experiences and bad and some of these guys have had a little bit of both in their short careers.”
Acknowledging that the bounce of the ball was sometimes kind, McGahan quickly pointed out that the close calls, such as Northampton’s knock-on with the try line at their mercy, were not all one-way traffic.
“We probably had a few things that could have gone our way. We were pretty close in the left hand corner in the first half with a forward pass between Niall Ronan and Conor Murray and then we maybe had a great opportunity when Denis Hurley went through off the back of a lineout. Later we went right when a ball into space might have given us seven points.”
For all that, he will seek a big improvement in France against old rivals Castres on Saturday.
“We’ll be playing a massive forward pack away from home; we saw what Montpellier did to Leinster (up front), so they (Castres) are not just going to roll over at home. We’ve been to France a number of times, we got punished in Toulon last year, we had a great win in Perpignan the year before, so we’ve tasted both sides of it.
“It’s really for us to keep that momentum going, we’ll enjoy it until Monday and then it’s back to business,” he said.
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