Crusaders gamble is typical of O’Gara
ROG’s ambition summed up in Crusaders switch
AFAMOUS player who risks their legend in management understands failure is more a probability than a possibility — but then does it anyway. It is, if nothing else, the sign of a courageous individual, willing to trade past glories for future uncertainty.
Most teams fail, and the world is stuffed with ambitious and hard-working individuals who don’t succeed in leading teams. For most of them, their disappointment is a private affair.
When the failing coach was a renowned player, though, the difficulties they endure are magnified and often savoured, to the point that the reputation they salted away over years is jeopardised.
Ronan O’Gara understood risk as the most important player for Ireland and Munster over a decade and a half. He never dodged it then; in his new direction as a coach, he has sought it out.
Confirmation of his move to Crusaders brings the latest decision made by O’Gara the coach, one that speaks to enormous ambition but also to an admirable willingness to take risks.
As a player, he was one of the most interesting sportsmen in Ireland. Now on the sidelines, he remains just as absorbing.
Not for him retirement, followed by a spell in the risk-free bubble of punditry, before an inevitable return to Munster and a coaching role earned not by his expertise as a strategist but his deeds as an out-half.
He chose a much more challenging, much more interesting way, risking himself in the lucrative but often treacherous world of France’s super clubs by joining Racing 92 in 2013, on the end of his playing time.
And he could have had the alternative: he could have been one more rugby player transformed into an off-pitch leader not by what he knows, but by what he did.
Speaking on Newstalk before O’Gara’s Crusaders move was confirmed, Brian O’Driscoll praised his long-time teammate for stepping ‘away from his comfort zone’.
He also cautioned against O’Gara being too successful, doing too much too quickly. ‘You have to be careful how quickly you get to the top, too,’ said O’Driscoll.
‘It’s a long life ahead of us and if you get fast-tracked really quickly and he gets there [the role of Ireland head coach] at 46 or 47 and he gets two or three years there, before your 50th birthday you’re falling off the peak.’
Every move O’Gara has made since retirement is a step away from the pitfalls identified by O’Driscoll.
Had he thrown himself into Munster shortly after retiring, he would have found himself, with no experience, trying to alchemise ordinary players into European champions, because the fans would have expected it; they associated O’Gara with glory, and the presumption would be that success was inevitable.
It could have seriously handicapped him. Instead, if and when he eventually returns to Ireland, he should have the guts of a decade of experience earned in two of the most challenging rugby environ- ments in the world. Surviving four and a half years in Paris was no little achievement, but O’Gara did more than that. The French club scene is tumultuous, buffeted by the whims of millionaires, the demands of supporters and the temperaments of big names paid a fortune. Much of the rugby played is terrible, forward-oriented bumper cars, as France drifts further and further away from its dazzling heritage, with the wretched state of the national team reflective of that. However, Racing exposed O’Gara to a completely different culture from the one he knew instinctively at Munster. This was not a club with the fixed identity that proved so valuable in a red jersey. Instead, it occupied a world where money was powerful and wealthy players had to be motivated and led in different ways. He was appointed by coaches in Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers who were themselves only joining the club. Together they won the Top 14 in 2016, the club’s first championship in 26 years. O’Gara stayed publicly humble, though, repeating often his determination to work and to learn.
The opportunity to coach the greatest living out-half when Dan Carter pitched up in Paris after the last World Cup was savoured, but it seems certain the information flowed two ways: Carter is a Crusaders legend, and one supposes he sent home good reports of working with O’Gara.
When he returned to Thomond Park with Racing last January for a European Cup match, O’Gara was determined his team would perform after they had been battered in Paris. They lost but delivered a performance.
Afterwards, O’Gara misunderstood a question and thought he was being asked about coming back to coach Munster one day. His answer was revealing. ‘A lot can happen in sport, you can get fired, you could keep going but I look upon this coaching game as a marathon,’ he said.
‘I don’t look upon it as a quick outcome, so if you feel valued in your environment you keep going.’
He knows the importance of broad horizons too, though, and in moving to the club who will defend the Super Rugby championship next year, O’Gara is plunging into a culture superior to Racing — and all this after his summertime stint working with Joe Schmidt on a leg of Ireland’s tour.
The marathon analogy frames O’Gara’s attitude: this is a longhaul project, but it is moving inexorably towards rugby’s podium places.