SPORT: Ronan O'Gara: My Autobiography With Denis WalshTransworld Ireland, 324pp, £18.99
THE HAPPIEST DAYS in the life of an Irish rugby fan used to be the two weeks before the start of the international season. On a wave of beery optimism, we'd convince ourselves once more that "this year was going to be different". We'd lull the enemy into a false sense of security; we'd hit them when they least expected it. This could be it, lads; this could be our year.
As a mind-altering substance, pre-international hype was serious junk. But performance-enhancing, no. There is an endearing innocence about how we talked ourselves into believing we could win, especially compared to what we actually achieved.
Yes, we produced many fine and sometimes brilliant players. Yes, we cobbled together unlikely one-off triumphs against fancied teams. But championships? Too few to mention. One Grand Slam in a century. In over twenty years of the Rugby World Cup, Ireland has never won a knock-out, winner-take-all game.
Now, things have changed. The biggest compliment one could pay O'Gara and his comrades is that now we expectto win. These days we're more cynical, less tolerant of failure, demanding more and more success. A generation earlier we were on our knees praying for the mythic Triple Crown. Now the salver won three times in the last five years is virtually ignored. We've moved on.
And the main cause of all this? One word: Munster. Painful as it is for a Leinster fan to admit, the truth hurts; and the truth is that right now Ireland needs Munster far more than Munster needs Ireland.
One of many illuminating observations in this book is that O'Gara feels under more pressure playing in a red jersey than in green. Why? Tribalism. Passion. The sense of playing for your parish, for your neighbours; of being afraid to lose for those you know and love.
This intensity, this commitment is the cornerstone of Munster's outstanding achievements and it sings out from the pages. Sadly, Ireland have often lacked that elusive alchemy of spark and grit. O'Gara will win few friends (outside a delighted Munster) when he claims "there's a huge credibility about Munster that the Irish team doesn't really have," but who could disagree? Anyway, he won't be too put out by scowls from north and east and west. O'Gara has become a man who calls it as he sees it; a necessary characteristic of the world-class player he is. Stubborn, cranky, arrogant (did I mention he was from Cork?) O'Gara displays the loyalty and edgy defiance that typifies the current Munster team. Humour, too.
Part of what binds the Thomond dressing-room together is the merciless ribbing of each other. O'Gara is a frequent target. His predilection for moaning at referees (Eddie O'Sullivan made it a condition of giving him the Irish captaincy that he abstain) earns him the name Victor Meldrew. When he spoofs to the media about a (wholly imaginary) job-offer from the Miami Dolphins the lads christen him Flipper. Other nicknames also feature, as well of course as Rog, pronounced Rodge. (As in Podge. Bet Alan Quinlan didn't let that one pass).
Necessarily, the book recounts many memorable moments. The kick to win the Heineken Cup (against Northampton, 2000) that went wide; missing it, he says, made him a better player. Seven years later, away to Leicester in sheets of rain, he nails one from inside his own half to win.
The big losses and bigger wins (especially against England) are here as well. O'Gara observes tartly that he's played in home internationals where the crowd didn't get involved; that never happens in any meaningful match involving Munster. He's good on the boredom, the confinement; hotel, weights-room, the training-ground, the gym.
Respectful (but not close) to his various coaches, he doubts it's possible to have something as strong as friendship with them in the professional game. The odysseys across Europe in search of the Heineken Cup also feature. Indeed the book concludes with the win in Cardiff in 2008, a kind of redemption for O'Gara after a season he describes as "the toughest time of my life". He means, of course, not just the World Cup debacle (overtrained physically, insufficient match practice, hotel in an industrial estate) but also the vicious stories surrounding his marriage. It's hard not to feel sorry for O'Gara and his wife, his childhood sweetheart Jess: damned if you deny, damned if you don't.
He also dismisses the lurid allegations about gambling. Admitting a fondness for a flutter since his schooldays, he ruefully concedes he's lost more money owning horses than backing them. The tabloid stalking of our sporting heroes is reprehensible but seems to be an inevitable part of the package of the game today.
So, intriguingly, is cheating. "All the best teams cheat," he claims, suggesting that if a Munster player had done what Neil Back did in the 2002 final he'd be a "legend". The dark arts of sledging, eye-gouging and even biting (of Peter Clohessy, allegedly by a Castres player; you'd want some hunger on you to try that) are discussed. O'Gara also recalls suffocating in Murrayfield in 2007, when he turned blue in the face (now he knows how fans sometimes feel), before John Hayes came to his rescue; saved, you might say, by The Bull.
THE BREEZY TONE OF THISengaging, candid read is pure O'Gara. There are some entertaining asides. Irish players stifle giggles as Warren Gatland tries to teach them Transcendental Meditation; Eddie "The Eagle" O'Sullivan as American national coach asks O'Gara to declare for the US (he was born in Sacramento). The portrait of O'Gara and Stringer topping up their tans in a sweltering Bordeaux before their 2000 Heineken Cup semi-final (before management hauled them into the shade) is a touching throwback to the give-it-a-lash days.
O'Gara is a modern-day true pro, building himself up by sheer hard work (and, his Munster team-mates say, a diet of Milupa). Choir-boy looks but corner-boy cockiness; in Ireland, he says, false modesty is valued far more than honesty.
Acknowledging the pressure he hates but also loves (even worse if you're the kicker) he recounts how sometimes the attention from his adoring faithful seems a bit over the top. At Mass a young fella asks O'Gara to autograph his missal. Who says rugby isn't a religion? This engrossing book sails straight between the posts.
John O'Donnell is a poet, a barrister and a long-suffering Ireland (and Leinster) rugby fan