La Rochelle chief on not getting a look-in for Leinster role, why his playing greatness has no bearing on the sidelines, and his ambitions to win a World Cup

It’s dark, 8am on Saturday morning, and La Rochelle is beginning to stir. A mechanised bollard system denies traffic, except for public transport and taxis, to large swathes of the town centre and its narrow, cobblestoned streets. An SUV in the rugby club’s livery pulls up adjacent to Place du Commandant de La Motte Rouge.

The drive to Macif Parc, La Rochelle’s centre of excellence and training facility, takes 15 minutes. Ronan O’Gara punches in a code, ascends a spiral staircase and heads for a room that’s home to coaches, analysts and some of the medical team. Several are already in situ, including skills coach Sean Dougall, while forwards coach Donnacha Ryan arrives moments later.

The introductions are brief, but there is a warmth to accompany good manners. It’s not just for the stranger. The universal greeting between players, coaches, staff and the president and owner, Vincent Merling, who sits at the back of a team meeting later that morning, is a handshake; orthodox or funky freestyle.

There’s time for a coffee in the breakout room with its pool and table tennis tables, dartboard and pro-style card table, before addressing the first order of business; an analysts and coaches briefing a week out from a Top 14 game against Stade Français. The dissemination includes a statistical breakdown and footage, codified in bite-size strengths and weaknesses. Everything is conducted in French. Short and sharp, 20 minutes.

The walls are adorned with mission statements, a list of values that prioritise the collective over the individual encapsulated in the headline motto “Je suis parce que nous sommes”, which translates as “I am because we are”. There are other non-negotiable behaviours writ large on the walls and whiteboards that constitute the La Rochelle rugby gospel.

Nestled in a corner is a wheel of fortune complete with handwritten forfeits. The guilty are taxed. There are cash amounts ranging from €150 all the way down to €20 and a requirement to spin again. Others include having to bring coffee, tea and milk for the ensemble, to sing a song in the tunnel, to don fancy dress, a requirement to bring in Madeleine cakes for everyone for the traditional afternoon snack, or “le goûter”. There is no immunity, player or coach.

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A little under 24 hours earlier O’Gara swept through the door of Maison des Ambassadeurs, a boutique hotel in the heart of the old town. He retains a boyish appearance despite a silver thatch and there is no trace in his gait of a left hip issue that may someday require surgery. It doesn’t currently impinge on playing padel.

A recent decision to sign a four-year contract extension at La Rochelle, a town once famous for its deepwater U-boat pens, torpedoed speculation that he might succeed Leo Cullen at Leinster. It wasn’t idle chit-chat. The IRFU’s performance director David Humphreys, a former Ireland team-mate, said in July: “Of course, I would say he’ll [O’Gara] be a candidate for every job that comes up in Ireland.

“I met Rog two or three months ago when La Rochelle were in Belfast, and we talked about where his coaching ambitions were.”

The phone never rang. A globetrotting résumé that saw him coach at Racing 92 and win trophies at the Crusaders in New Zealand and La Rochelle, didn’t merit a conversation or consideration.

He couldn’t outrun history, couldn’t expunge the memory of him in a Munster shirt inflicting pain on Leinster. There is no inoculation against jaundiced views. Time doesn’t always heal. He was aware of the pushback against his candidature from some former players and administrators.

“No, Leinster didn’t reach out and the competitor inside you would be disappointed that they didn’t because you think [why wouldn’t you at least have a chat],” he said.

“But like, for me, so many people are stuck in the past. Yes, as the rugby player for Munster, I didn’t like Leinster and Leinster didn’t like me. Let’s be honest here. We’re playing sport to win.

“I had 10 years of unbelievable days in the red jersey when we usually got the better of Leinster and the last four years, where Leinster took over. That’s as a player. That’s 2013 when I stopped playing.

“Then you try and build a completely different career. Some people in Ireland don’t understand that I am a professional coach that’s gone around the world to be as good as I can be. And the job that I’m doing here would speak quite highly of [my progress] without talking myself up; sometimes you must stand for something.”

It’s barely credible that his experiences as a 128-Test outhalf, assistant coach and head coach taking in a career in Ireland, France and New Zealand didn’t merit a conversation. If nothing else he could have offered a dispassionate, objective critique and perhaps a few suggestions. No win, no fee. No harm. But ultimately, no chance.

Perhaps coaching La Rochelle to a couple of Champions Cup final wins over Leinster was unpalatable to his potential employers, rather than any red mist that lingered from his playing days.

O’Gara was more philosophical than peeved.

“Everything happens for a reason. And I think someone is probably looking out for me to not make one of the golden boys of Munster rugby, in the old school way of looking at things, go up there and create divisive opinions.”

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Saturday midmorning and it’s time to swap Macif Parc for the Stade Marcel Deflandre, where La Rochelle will host Bordeaux-Bègles, fourth versus third in the Top 14 on Sunday night. A “local” derby, separated by 193 kilometres of motorway.

The players amble towards the media room where the coaches will present on four or five key areas for the Bordeaux game. The polyglot greeting, franglais, is an accommodation to the stranger. Manners dictate that no one passes by or finds the floor, the ceiling or a phone suddenly fascinating.

O’Gara stands in front of the screen in the amphitheatre. To one side there is a phalanx of coaches, Munster old boys Dougall and Ryan, Sébastien Boboul, Rémi Tales, Romain Sazy and Uini Atonio. The video clips have been agreed and prepared earlier that morning. Specifics. Rat-a-tat-tat.

O’Gara’s Cork lilt is a little more pronounced when he’s animated. It adds a singsong quality to his French. La Rochelle captain Grégory Alldritt adds his tuppence, before Dougall curates several clips. Time for the “Mise en Place” as the French refer to the Captain’s Run, a nod to a culinary term associated with the prep for cooking.

It started with a game of soccer, a weirdly incongruous spectacle – tiny goals and a shoot-on-sight policy – as some extremely large humans with minimal football skills gallivant. For those of a certain vintage, the soccer scene from the 1971 film Bedknobs and Broomsticks is a comparable visual. At one point a player inadvertently stood on the ball, which prompted a head shake from the coaching fraternity.

Among the more cultured footballers is Ben Healy, the 27-year-old Tipperary native, who joined the club during the summer. Injury delayed his start to the season but he’s back fit, having played against Pau.

The rest of the session passed along familiar lines. O’Gara’s next assignment was to watch his son Rua (18), in action for the Brice Dulin-coached La Rochelle Espoirs that afternoon against Racing 92. It doubled as a chance to catch up with a friend and former French international centre Henry Chavancy, who oversaw the visitors.

Rua had started the previous two matches at outhalf but was on the bench behind Diego Jurd (20), who has already played eight times in the Top 14 and is a French Under-20 international. O’Gara smiled when he said of his son: “He’s not genetically gifted [a reference to his own slight frame]. “He’s started speed and weight training, but he gets the game.”

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In the hotel, O’Gara paused for a moment to consider the questions. Why did he become a coach? And why ignore the Irish system to go abroad?

“In 2013 it might have been a coping mechanism to deal with the end of a playing career.

“It was better to get out of Munster, because I didn’t want to be [fielding questions about] how Munster will go at the weekend, meeting everybody, staying there, and being institutionalised by that feeling.

“I wouldn’t have been able to handle that. I was fascinated by trying to get the best out of people, when it came to the end of the playing days. I didn’t know if I wanted to coach but felt like it was something that I could do.

“I met the two Laurents, Labit and Travers, who were going from Castres, a very French club, to an international club in Racing in Paris. They got me in and made a triangle of what was a two-man relationship. They embraced me, gave me a lot of growth. Starting off I didn’t know how to put the cones out, how to set up a drill, what to do [in general].

“For 18 months, you’re learning a trade in a different language. Your world is different; your head is in a different space. That’s what compensates, helps in the grieving, from not being able to stand over a ball, and kick a drop goal in front of 80,000 people – which is a good buzz, I can tell you.

“And a lot of people don’t get that. If it’s not that, it’s a penalty. If it’s not that, it’s giving away a penalty to lose a Lions series. For all the rosiness, there are daggers. That’s sport, isn’t it?

“You’ve got to accept it. It’s the Northampton final, where you’re zero from five [place kicks] and a lot of guys that you really, really respect, and like, don’t get a medal. They won’t say it to you afterwards but they’re feeling it because it’s gone. If you stay in the game, it’s good but no guarantees. I understood that going into coaching. What you did as a player has little bearing.”

If Paris was an introduction, New Zealand and his time at the Crusaders transformed his thinking.

“I got turned upside down by Scott Robertson. It was the best 24 months of my life,” he said.

“I saw a culture and environment of growth mindset, people believing in it, living in it, and setting up other people to succeed, genuinely having their backs and pushing performance.”

He recalled prop Owen Franks on a game day, working through his scrum routine.

Detail and selflessness.

“I got there at the right time. I got how they [understood] competition without being nasty. It was so powerful. Believe me, in other environments, it works for maybe three or four weeks and it’s not sustained.

“I think very few people understand what’s involved in coaching and managing. It’s nothing like playing. Rugby is quite complex if you want to be a head coach. There are a lot of stepping stones.

“You’ve got to be a backs coach, an attack coach, defence coach, understand where and how everything fits together. It took me to the last month at the Crusaders to finally feel I could take the next step to be a head coach.”

France presented another set of challenges. “It’s very rare that an outsider does what I do. It’s great. Forget about the language barrier, it’s a cultural business over here. Everything is around performance.

“When I left Munster [as a player] I went to Racing to try and build up competencies as a coach. You do a good job there and you get someone like Dan Carter that speaks a good word and then the door opens in Crusaders, which was a game changer. Then you’re meeting Jono Gibbes, who wants you as an assistant to work in La Rochelle for a year. And then you take over.”

He points to the fact that he had at La Rochelle a president and owner in Vincent Merling and a CEO in Pierre Veneyre who believed in him, let him off, something “that’s very important”, as is winning. He rewarded their faith. Two Champions Cup successes brook no argument.

His coaching style evolved; he learned to delegate. He doesn’t need to micromanage Atonio at scrum time or doorstep Ryan’s cool excellence in running the lineout and maul.

“Every day you learn something. I’m good in my capacity to adapt in the now,” he said.

“That wrecks the heads of some of the assistants because some people need a period to reflect, to prepare, to organise their session and thoughts. I have good discussions with Donnacha about front-five things, and how they think. I’m like, ‘are you serious, is that what goes through their heads?’”

Part of it is understanding the French psyche.

“When you ask a French player the ‘why’ of playing rugby they reply ‘the prendre plaisir, coach’. Coming from Munster and Ireland our ‘prendre plaisir’ was in the dressingroom afterwards with a beer.”

O’Gara smiles as he explains his French assistants view rucks as “poison” and that they “lose their minds” if someone gets tackled into touch or mistimes a run beyond a ball carrier.

La Rochelle play a game in training which O’Gara calls “Under-12s”. It starts with a GAA style throw-in, one-on-one and only one ruck allowed before possession is reversed. It’s about speed of foot, thought and offloading.

He also sticks a pin in the French flair balloon.

“[External] opinion would be that the French flair is in the moment. They train all this. Pierre Villepreux and ‘Jeu Debut’ [game on your feet], that’s how they ‘prendre plaisir’. If you can’t run forward, run sideways, wait for the player running the trail line [that cuts a fresh angle].

“I feel very capable of growing a player. If a guy has a big appetite, I think I’m the right coach. If a guy is 50-50 about [being] self-motivated but wants to reach for the stars, I think I know how to push him, not break him. That’s something you really appreciate as you get older. Not having regrets is very powerful. How many players [say] I wish. If. But. Should. I don’t do that. That’s me as a coach.”

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Four hours to kick-off on the Sunday and the players play an activation game. Two lines facing each other, backs against forwards, no running, no movement, numbers whittled until one side wins.

Upstairs, O’Gara sits quietly, writing notes. Ryan is reviewing footage on a laptop screen. Coaches and analysts come and go. Everyone makes it to the canteen at some point for the prematch meal. There’s a final run-through to loosen limbs.

At 7.25pm, the squad walks the half a kilometre to the Stade Marcel Deflandre. It’s a ritual that’s only broken when it’s raining heavily. Falling into step, O’Gara chats about family, wife Jess, twins Rua and Molly, JJ, Zak and Max, all of whom will be at the game. The lights of the stadium are visible from the get-go.

The footfall of supporters increases but nothing prepares the uninitiated for the vista after a sharp right turn that takes the players to the gates of the stadium. Supporters are eight or nine deep on either side, leaving a two-metre tunnel through which the players and coaches walk.

There is an explosion of noise, of colour, the yellow and black clad devotees, hands outstretched, singing, chanting assails the senses; there are cheerleaders and bands. It’s surreal, a 90-second, 200-metre walk on the wild side.

O’Gara catches up with Bordeaux’s backs coach Noel McNamara and head coach Yannick Bru before the game. The razzmatazz and atmosphere are brilliant, the result less so. The visitors prevail 25-19. La Rochelle started slowly, coughed up 18 points to Hugo Reus off the tee, which hollowed out a 3-1 try count in favour of the home side.

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The decision to sign a new four-year contract with La Rochelle and Andy Farrell agreeing a new deal with Ireland for the same duration aligns on a superficial level. O’Gara’s not biting.

“I don’t know if I will go into Test rugby. [If] I go into Test rugby my ambition is to win a World Cup. There are a few nations that can do that. Those nations usually are locked up with guys [coaching] from that country.”

The translation reads: if the right job is offered at the right time, he’ll take it. He’s travelled the world, acquiring knowledge and experience. He wanted to be the best outhalf. He wants to be the best coach.

“That’s a position I put myself in with an unbelievable amount of understanding from Jess, because it’s a job for seven people, when you commit.”

He’s rebuilding at La Rochelle, excited by the potential. Winning the Top 14 is a primary goal. It’s about controlling the controllables and letting the conjecture drift on the wind of public opinion.