O’Gara smoothes transition period

DRAMA and Ronan O’Gara appear joined at the hip these days with the Corkman once again delivering the final blow with Saturday’s Pool 1 cliff hanger deep in injury-time.

O’Gara smoothes transition period

You just couldn’t scrip it. His composure under pressure is peerless. The botched effort from Racing Metro’s drop-goal king Juan Martin Hernandez in the final seconds of their amazing cliff hanger against Edinburgh on Friday night — from a far more advantageous position than O’Gara’s — just shows what it takes to execute with precision when the stakes are at their highest.

The net result of the weekend’s activities in Heineken Cup Pool 1 is that progress to the quarter-finals has already boiled down to a straight shoot-out between Munster and the Scarlets, with the latter’s bonus point win at Franklins Gardens putting them in pole position. After just two rounds of action, last season’s beaten finalists Northampton and Castres have already been banished to the realm of also-rans. No side has ever progressed to the knockout phase after losing their opening two games.

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