O’Gara: I’ll be away for years

Ronan O’Gara has no plans to follow Johnny Sexton home at the end of the season.

Certainly not when there are so many pressing questions. Riddles to be solved. Why, for instance, do players at French clubs shrug when balls are fumbled at training? How can French sides be so brilliant one week and abject the next?

It might be a bit ambitious to tackle age-old French problems just 16 months after relocating to the country, particularly as an “outsider”, let alone attempt to re-engineer French psyches in a second tongue, but last Saturday the Racing Metro coach claims he saw evidence his efforts at extracting more vocal contributions from the players are beginning to work, despite a 23-19 Stade Francais loss.