BIARRITZ v MUNSTER:Munster's outhalf has the courage to believe that leadership suits him, writes JOHNNY WATTERSON

HIS APPROACH to the Media Centre in Musgrave Park is chimed by the clicks of his studs becoming louder on the hard path. He steps up and in through the door, boots covered in mud, a yellow and blue splattered Munster top. “Howrya lads,” says Ronan O’Gara as the light crowd parts.

They say that star quality jumps from the page. If you have the look, it’s visible. O’Gara has. His entrance has a galvanising effect on the room. Too many Munster victories have hung on his name. A decade in the frontline has shaped his thinking for weeks like these. He’s been at it since September 1997 when Munster lost to Harlequins at the Stoop. No one but O’Gara remains from that team. Keith Earls was nine years old.

His eyes occasionally give way to guarded introspection. Often he engages in friendly banter. Always O’Gara has something to say. Today he is sunny. He has just been kicking on the pitch behind. His top is loose, not stretched tight over knuckles of muscle like the younger set who have known little other than professional rugby schooling. O’Gara didn’t come through the Academies, didn’t worship at the altar of the bench press and squat. His education was the provincial cup derby, with Cork Con in trench warfare at Young Munster’s “Killing Fields.”

It was there he learned about win or bust big games. One of the modern faces of Munster rugby is strictly old school. “We’re in our 30s, most of us. We’re a mature team,” he says. “As opposed to coming through Academies, we came through the Munster Senior Cup or the AIL where they were big derby games, big pressure games. As youngsters, that experience is invaluable to you.

“It’s 80 minutes on Sunday. It’s knockout rugby. We’ve been in a lot of semi-finals before. Will there be pressure? Yeah.

“It comes down to attitude,” he continues. “If you look at different games around the world, so-called better teams are getting beaten by underdogs because the mind-set isn’t there. I can’t see any reason why our attitude won’t be spot-on. And we give ourselves every chance of coming through on the other side.”

Today O’Gara has the captain’s armband. He declines the invitation to talk down Munster or witter on about the absence of Paul O’Connell. Not because he believes O’Connell’s injury does not hurt the team but because above all O’Gara is a pragmatist, an opportunist. Out of the ashes of O’Connell’s end of season, O’Gara has been elevated. He has earned confidence. He has the courage to believe captaincy suits him. He has never been afraid to back Ronan O’Gara.

Just after the Lions tour he was told that Donncha O’Callaghan felt honoured to be offered the captaincy of a midweek team. O’Gara was asked if he felt the same way. He looked at the questioner with a mix of resentment and laughter. “I wouldn’t see it that way,” he said before explaining that a midweek armband was no consolation for a weekend rest for the Test match. He is not one for slops. Now, in San Sebastian he will be captain and pivot.

“I love it. I enjoy responsibility. I take my rugby very seriously. I like to think I prepare well for games. But as the captain it can be over-exaggerated, the role you play. Primarily my job is to perform to the best of my ability.

“When there’s crucial decisions, he’ll get the flak or cop the praise.

“That’s what comes with the territory. That’s why you enjoy putting yourself up there, to get criticised or praised. But I enjoy it. I got good experience in 2008 doing it and we went a long way without Paulie in that campaign. Then he came in and got us home. I enjoy it is the answer.”

Leader, organiser, team spokesman, diplomat, player but the decision to kick for points, gain territory or punt a Garryowen is not his alone.

“Over all the years I would say that was probably a 95 per cent decision to me,” he says. “There would be times when I would be over-ruled, when I want to go to the corner maybe, if I get a feeling. But he’d (O’Connell) go ‘points Rog’. That’s it. He tells the ref and doesn’t ask me.

“I’ve been in this situation before and probably the first player I’d look to is John Hayes, and that might surprise you,” he adds looking up.

Everyone in the room nods their head in agreement and surprise that the tighthead prop is one of O’Gara’s sounding posts of how the match is progressing.

“Exactly,” says O’Gara, satisfied that his audience knows little of the heat at ground level in a Heineken Cup semi-final. “That’s because I’m on the pitch and the game on the pitch is different. He gives me his opinion.”

He respects Hayes, relies on his match awareness. But the Bruff man is also a barometer of the condition of the pack. “Playing the game, especially as an out-half, there’s a balance you have to find between pleasing your outer backs and pleasing your front five and that sometimes isn’t appreciated. If the ball is spun out to the backs and the backs drop it, you’re not going to get much from your front five.

“If the front five see the ball going into the corner they are going to sprint after the ball. So you have to get that balance right between satisfying Earlsy (Keith) and satisfying John Hayes, which I think has been the great thing about playing 10 for Munster for the years. For years we were considered a 10-man team and then we might have gone the other way, with an all-round game.

“Now I think we’ve the best of both games when we’re in tune.” Often cast as a pantomime character, a match winner-hooray, or, match loser-hiss, O’Gara’s swagger is undiminished with the passing years. His particular role sets him apart, pushes him out and his entire game can sometimes be measured as a succession of failed or inspired kicks.

Heroic one day, scapegoat the next, his default is the gospel of Munster. “If I have a shocker and Munster win then it doesn’t matter,” he says flatly. “It’s not about me. It was never about me.”