Munster legend misses playing
Reds legend O’gara, who steered the province to two Heineken Cups as a No.10, reckons Carbery has the potential to lead Munster to glory in the coming years after his sensational move from double-winners Leinster.
The Crusaders coach also feels that the 22-year-old will push and succeed Johnny Sexton for the Ireland out-half role – but before that will make the veteran even better.
“It’s brilliant,” declared O’gara. “I got a great buzz out of it because it’s Munster. What’s most exciting is his age profile. He’s only going to get better.
“The teams that have won the Champions Cup, it is an impressive list of out-halfs that have been on those winning teams.
“They key point is you need a very, very good 10 – a great 10, even, to win a European Cup. It’s too early to say that about Joey Carbery. But, the potential is there.”
Munster pushed themselves into the Champions Cup semi-finals in the last two seasons, and fell to Leinster in the last four in the PRO14 last term, too.
They have been just short and O’gara is hopeful that Carbery can be the missing link in that regard, and add that elite quality that they have been short of at out-half.
“It’s unbelievably interesting, I think it could make a massive difference, I genuinely do,” he said. RONAN O’gara admits he’d love to be playing for the Crusaders – but admits to great satisfaction at helping them to the Super Rugby title in his first year there.
“It was great, it was fantastic,” he admitted. “It reminded me a little of the Munster team I played with early on, in terms of a lot of leaders in the group.
“They just do it a little differently with their coaching style – you don’t tell the players, you have to get them to understand why we’re doing this play for example, why it’d work against this opposition, so it’s very detailed, but also not robotic.
“They kind of deliver the messages in meetings as opposed to me standing there saying, ‘I want you to do this’.
“I got a great personal satisfaction out of being able to get in there and see it. The one thing you’d have loved... if you were 25 and you could play them again.”