Josh van der Flier: I learnt a huge amount from Ronan O’Gara

Josh van der Flier knows what it’s like to share a field with the current La Rochelle coach.

Leinster's Josh van der Flier. Picture: INPHO/Laszlo Geczo

Age can be measured by more than just birthdays. It will be 13 years this May since Ronan O’Gara called time on his playing career and Josh van der Flier actually knows what it’s like to share a field with the current La Rochelle coach.

The Leinster flanker was still knocking around the province’s sub-academy and undergraduate finishing school when they were called in to act as foils to an Ireland team preparing for Test windows under Joe Schmidt.

Van der Flier was starting his journey just as O’Gara’s was coming to an end, but he remembers the brief overlap fondly, and a later shared experience when the Munster man was part of an Ireland coaching staff that toured the US in the summer of 2017.

“I found him really good,” he explained ahead of Saturday’s Champions Cup meeting with O’Gara’s La Rochelle in Dublin. “I learnt a huge amount from him in those few conversations I had. Yeah, always got on well.

“He’s obviously a brilliant coach, done very, very well the last few years. He’s always been very good to me whenever I’ve had personal interactions and stuff with him. It’s always been challenging to play against his teams.” 

That van der Flier is still around all these years later is no small thing.

The average length of a professional rugby career is just seven years. Rugby Players Ireland estimate that only 6% of players make it past the 12-year mark and the 32-year-old is well on the way to joining that club having debuted against Zebre in October 2014.

One of 10 thirtysomethings in the Leinster ranks – with six more due to join them in 2026 – the Wicklow man is one of those 14 returning British and Irish Lions at the club who will have found match fitness returning later than usual this season.

An injury during the November Test window didn’t help in that, neither did a frustrating return in that car crash of a Springbok defeat, but it’s in South Africa where he has found inspiration as he looks to kick on again in his career.

The evergreen Deon Fourie, to be exact.

“I used to watch him play, a great player. He’s late 30s now but (still) very much involved in games, having huge moments in and around the breakdown, which was something, as I’m getting older – I wouldn't say I'm old by any stretch, there's still plenty left in me – he’s been very effective.

“It's hard to be making 50-metre line breaks and burning people on the outside, but poaching or breakdown work is always something that you can, no matter how the body is during the season, always have a good impact on. So that’s something I've been trying to work on.” 

Other work-ons, on both sides of the ball, are in winning collisions and linking play. And, like Fourie, who became the oldest ever Bok rookie in 2022 and played 76 minutes of the World Cup final a year later, he plans on sticking around deep into his thirties.

“I feel great now. I was thinking back to when I was maybe 25, 22 or 20, from when I was 20 to 24, my body is way better than that.

“I had a lot of injuries then, ankle and hip was kind of me for a good while, and my body feels great. Part of it is you learn to manage it as well, but I would love to do a good few more years, yeah. Four or five maybe, see where we go.” 

No player’s graph edges ever upwards.

Van der Flier was European and World player of the year in 2022 after a string of exceptional performances across the season, but there were dips after that with another upsurge only enough to get him into a Lions touring squad but not the Test match equivalent.

His is still a deep body of work at this stage: 75 Test caps, 143 appearances for Leinster. He has won a Heineken Cup and five leagues, four Triple Crowns, three Six Nations, two Grand Slams and a tour success down in New Zealand.

The IRFU’s player management programme has played a major role in that, as has the player’s ability and application, but the mental challenge of hitting those heights year on year in a sport so physically demanding isn’t a factor to be overlooked.

“The training is probably what I find the toughest, when you've gone through a tough game on a Saturday and then you're coming into training and your body's still sore. That's probably always been that way, but that's the training. I just love playing games.”