O'Gara peels back bruising Kiwi memories but insists Irish efforts can finally bear fruit 

A win over the All Blacks in their own back yard remains one of Irish rugby's greatest unscratched itches. This summer may be the best chance yet

Wednesday, March 23rd: Pictured is Legendary Irish & Munster Rugby player and current La Rochelle Head Coach Ronan O’Gara at the launch of this year’s Aviva Mini Rugby Festivals in Aviva Stadium. Six camps, with over 2,000 participants, are set to take place across the country. Four provincial festivals will take place in April, before the National Festival takes places at Aviva Stadium, the Home of Irish Rugby, in May. To learn more about Aviva Mini Rugby Festivals, please visit www.aviva.ie/minirugby, or for more information, follow Aviva Ireland across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates over the coming weeks.

Five tours, one of them with the British and Irish Lions, ten cracks at the All Blacks all told, and with as many defeats across half-a-dozen different venues. Ronan O’Gara knows how hard it can be for a touring side in New Zealand.

Nothing summed up the near-yet-so-far-away nature of the Irish team’s relationship with them than his last visit as a player, in 2012, when Declan Kidney’s team was robbed of victory in a 22-19 defeat one week and then shipped 60 without reply the next.

Add in the wet and the cold, the daily reality of the sun taking its leave shortly after 5pm, and the prospect facing Ireland in Auckland, Dunedin and Wellington this summer is all too obvious. And that's before we even get to mentioning the All Blacks themselves.

“It's the start of their Test window. They're fresh and they're hungry,” said O’Gara who was speaking on the launch of the Aviva Mini Rugby Festival. “They look forward to new prey coming into their territory.” 

Ireland won’t travel in the role of sacrificial lambs. The La Rochelle director of rugby looks back at his games as a player down there now and rues how they left a number of what could and maybe should have been first Irish wins on Kiwi soil behind them.

Things have moved on since. He sees an international game that has become even more integral to players’ careers and a widespread culture of a ‘Club Ireland’ or a ‘Club France’ that leaves teams primed and fresh for gigs like the next trip to the ends of the earth.

Ireland will bring a squad of in and around 40 players to handle the three Tests against the hosts and another two games, likely against the Maori. Take Ian Foster’s men down just once and one of the last glass ceilings in the game for the national side will be shattered.

“There is a massive carrot there for this Irish team going to New Zealand with the prospect of winning a series. If they don't win a series, they have the prospect of winning a Test match. All these are firsts, they have never been done.

“So, they will be creating history, which makes the opportunity huge for this group of players and staff. For me, there are so many different stories or different imagery you can use to create an eventful month.” 

Tours of duty: Ronan O'Gara tackled by All Blacks Dan Carter and Jerome Kaino during another punishing night in New Zealand — a 2010 clash in New Plymouth which Ireland lost 66-28. Pic: INPHO/Billy Stickland

One of the most intriguing sub-plots is the presence of former Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt on the All Blacks coaching ticket. Another is not just the Kiwi losses to Ireland and France last November but the comprehensive nature of both.

This is no longer a master-versus-apprentice dynamic — even if New Zealand will still start every game as favourites against the tourists — with O’Gara arguing that the gap between the hemispheres has narrowed appreciably in recent times.

Thing is, results aren’t everything for Ireland this time.

Farrell will be looking to work on his depth chart while he’s there: in the front and second rows, at full-back, and at out-half where he needs to hand minutes to both Joey Carbery and whoever it is after that in the queue behind Johnny Sexton.

Brian O’Driscoll floated the option of not even bringing Sexton on the tour some weeks ago but O’Gara can’t see how the captain could be left at home. His take is that Farrell may need to bring another two tens though and possibly even a third.

The question then is who plays when and for how long, all the while balancing that localised consideration with the wider needs of the team on any given week, though what is blindingly obvious is the need for the Carbery project to move on again.

His starts against France and Italy in this spring's Six Nations made for a mixed bag and the eight minutes he added to his CV away to England and at home to the Scots just showed again how much Ireland continue to lean on Sexton when push comes to shove.

“Joey was available for the England and Scotland games and wasn't used (sic) so that would be, I would say, a deep frustration of his," observed O'Gara. "But the other side of it is, well, Johnny Sexton is the captain and he's playing well, so you have to budge him out of the team. They're not just going to hand it to you.” 

How that all breaks down for Carbery and the others trying to make an impression in New Zealand, he can’t say. Does the Munster man get one start? Two? All of that will depend on what happens over the next few months with the club and in camp once Ireland regroup.

The same goes for those hoping to show that they can be a viable option if a Tadhg Furlong, a James Ryan, or a Hugo Keenan can’t make it for the anthems or goes down mid-game. No better place than New Zealand to show you’ve got what it takes.

“I’d use it as an opportunity to show to your fellow players and staff what your character is, how you’d like to be seen by your fellow players. This is the place to do it. New Zealand. It is one of the hardest venues in world rugby to achieve something.”