O'Gara's La Rochelle gear up for Top 14 with win over Munster at sold-out Stade Marcel-Deflandre
Munster's Ben O'Connor and Ugo Pacome of La Rochelle compete in the air for the ball. Pic: Nick Elliott/Inpho
A full house at Stade Marcel-Deflandre saw Ronan O’Gara’s home side sign off on their pre-season campaign with a comfortable victory over Munster nine days out from the start of their Top 14 campaign.
A month further along in their 2026-27 preparations than the visitors and with Toulouse on their way to the Deflandre a week on Sunday, La Rochelle looked every bit the team ready for competitive action as they raced into a 40-12 half-time lead while Munster were the epitome of rustiness in their first action still a month away from the start of their United Rugby Championship season.
Not that a sell-out crowd of 18,000 will care as they celebrated a seven-to-four victory.
For Munster, there will be satisfaction of valuable minutes in the legs of their travelling squad, both sides having fielded two different teams in each half. Also, having been outplayed in the first period, outscoring their hosts by two tries to one after the interval was another positive.
Head coach Clayton McMillan will have seen the early impacts being made by his reshaped backroom, with new attack coaches Jared Payne and promoted skills coach Mossy Lawler looking like they were employing some new attacking shapes following in from the departure of Mike Prendergast to Bath, while incoming forwards coach Jimmy Duffy will gain plenty of encouragement from a dominant Munster maul.
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Munster’s remaining pre-season game comes in Cork against Leicester Tigers on September 18, eight days before their URC opener at Thomond Park against Glasgow Warriors and McMillan will hope to have made some serious progress from this outing between the two warm-ups.
Munster enjoyed a bright start, wing Shay McCarthy breaking from the visitors’ 22 to halfway after his side received the La Rochelle kick-off.
McMillan’s side took the lead soon after, working the ball from left to right, from where No.8 Gavin Coombes scored from close range just a minute into the game.
Yet Munster’s rustiness was all too apparent and their inability to keep possession was ruthlessly exploited by La Rochelle, their No.8 Sam Tuifua with a big carry to the opposition’s 10-metre line with supporting runner, full-back Ugo Pacome finishing from there after nine minutes, fly-half Diego Jurd’s conversion pushing the home side into a 7-5 lead.
Pacome doubled that with an excellent solo effort, collecting a Ben O’Donovan box kick inside his own half and dancing through the Munster defence to score his second inside three minutes, Jurd converting.
A third converted try came on 16 minutes through lock Thomas Lavault, and Jurd gave La Rochelle a further boost with a 50-22 to the right wing. The lineout found blindside flanker Andy Timo, whose strong charge to the five-metre line was completed with an offload from the ground into the path of right wing Nathan Bollenger to make it a fourth try; Jurd again accurate with the kick from out wide.
One of Munster’s positives throughout was undoubtedly their maul and hooker Lee Barron’s finish off the back of the set-piece delivered a second try for the visitors after some sustained pressure in the right corner had seen La Rochelle concede three successive penalties.
JJ Hanrahan converted to make it 28-12 in the 27th minute but O’Gara’s men were quickly moving the scoreboard as Timo claimed La Rochelle’s fifth three minutes later, again converted by Jurd.
The home side continued to punish Munster’s loose kicking with Pacome’s counter-attack once more making inroads with La Rochelle earning a five-metre lineout soon after from where hooker Pierre Bougarit finished a lineout drive for a sixth try of the opening period on 34 minutes. Jurd this time failed to convert and Munster went in at the half-time break trailing 40-12.
A new half brought two new XVs for both sides, Munster retaining only full-back Ben O’Connor as a left wing with Mike Haley coming in at number 15 ahead of schedule two minutes before the break for the injured McCarthy. Dan Kelly also stayed on at inside centre having been a late replacement for intended starter Alex Nankivell.
There was also a familiar face at number 10 for La Rochelle as Tipperary-born Munster academy graduate Ben Healy got his first minutes at fly-half having been signed from Edinburgh during the summer.
Yet an all-new Munster forward pack did not mean a change in the effectiveness of its maul and just seven minutes into the second half, new forwards coach Jimmy Duffy could celebrate a penalty try as La Rochelle once again failed to deal with the lineout drive.
The rest of the third period saw the first hint of a stalemate with the game scoreless for 20 minutes.
Yet Munster scored with just 14 men on the field after scrum-half Ethan Coughlan was sin-binned in the 67th minute.
Second-half fly-half Tom Wood sent a penalty to the left corner to set up another maul and though La Rochelle dealt with the drive, Munster moved the ball at pace.
Former Ireland Sevens international Hubert Gilvarry had come off the wing to stand in at number nine and he fired a pass to outside centre Sean O’Brien whose short tip-on pass found No.8 Brian Gleeson, who ran onto the ball at pace and could not be stopped from close range.
Woods’s conversion made it 40-26 but the La Rochelle supporters were quickly on their feet once more as their scrum powered into action, winning a penalty at the set-piece in front of the posts and electing to pack down a second time.
Gregory Alldritt juggled the ball at his feet as his forwards turned the screw once more and his pass to scrum-half Valentin Jouju sent in the local number nine for a popular final score of the game, Healy converting to make it 47-26.
U Pacome; N Bollenger, P Torau Vuetimaiwai, S Ellisalde, H Bosmorin; D Jurd, C Loustalot; A Kaddouri, P Bourgarit, K Sorin; T Lavault, T Adelaide; A Timo, M Haddad, S Tuifua.
G Garault, N Fraissenon, C Kante Samba, T McFarland, P Boudehent, J Favre, A Kuntelia, L Penverne, T Latu, W Waqanisaravi, I Gatteau, L Anjisseramatchi, G Alldritt, V Bouju, B Healy, S Daunivucu, U Sueteni, J Nowell, Z Price.
N Fraissenon 48-58 mins
B O’Connor; D Kilgallen, G Wood, D Kelly, S McCarthy (M Haley, 39); JJ Hanrahan, B O’Donovan; M Milne, L Barron, M Ala’alatoa; C Kennelly, F Wycherley; S Edogbo, J Hodnett, G Coombes.
M Haley; H Gilvarry, S O’Brien, D Kelly, B O’Connor; T Wood, E Coughlan; M Donnelly, D Barron, J Aungier; C Ryan, E O’Connell; J O’Donoghue, A Kendellen, B Gleeson.
D Sheahan, E Calvey, R Foxe, K Brookes.
E Coughlan 67-77 mins.
Evan Urruzmendi (France)
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