O'Gara won't fire first volley

European Cup/Munster v Castres: Keith Duggan talks to Ronan O'Gara who joins a select group of players this afternoon when he lines out for his 50th European Cup game

It seems absurd the sporting life of Ronan O'Gara has reached the point where Michael Aspel should be hovering in the shower room in Thomond Park to present the Cork man with the famous red book. He seems way too . . . fresh . . . to be in line for the formality of sitting in a suit with an embarrassed head as old luminaries like Keith Wood or, emh, Duncan McRae, emerge from behind the curtain.

It may not have quite reached that stage but O'Gara nonetheless joins a select group of international rugby players this afternoon when he lines out for his 50th Heineken European Cup game.

To top it all, O'Gara will almost certainly surpass the 645 points record set by Diego Dominguez in the competition as he has amassed 640 to date in the competition. Dominguez, of course, was one of the great survivors of the modern game, playing on until the age of 37. O'Gara still looks a bit like an altar boy, albeit an altar boy who would tell you where to stick your crozier if the mood took him.

On a humdrum lunchtime in Limerick, he slouches over a table in the café at Limerick University somewhat gloomily acknowledging the arrival of this significant set of accomplishments. Outside, Frankie Sheahan is waiting in the car, drumming the steering wheel, waiting to chauffeur the pair of them back down to paradise. But O'Gara considers the moment.

"Yeah, it is great," he says uncomfortably, "but I haven't put too much thought into it and I won't reflect on it too much. For me, it will be mentioned and put to one side. Sport moves so quickly nowadays that you just want to stay injury free and get a good run. I suppose the scoring record is a far bigger achievement probably than 50 caps. Goalkicking is important and scoring that shows a consistency of form over the seasons. Dominguez was terrific, an outstanding kicker and well able to create and it would be a nice achievement to surpass him because he went until he was 37 or whatever."

O'Gara blanches at the suggestion he might continue to operate at the top level through most of his 30s.

"Nah, I won't be playing at 37. Hope not anyway," he grins, rapping the table with his knuckles.

The sheer thought probably exhausts him. It is hard to fathom that it is only four years since O'Gara made his debut for Ireland because he has given us so many moments at both club and provincial level. This winter has been no different, coolly dropping the winning goal against Argentina in a blustery, drenched Lansdowne Road a fortnight ago and then somehow provoking the ire of Castres' Paul Volley in France a week ago.

It is a mystery to most people why Volley seemed to take the mere sight of O'Gara as a personal insult, lathering into him in open play and constantly in his ear when the Munster man was lining up his shots on goal. O'Gara's on-field persona is not antagonistic but he carries himself through games with such an evident sense of cool belief that, combined with the choir-boy looks, might just trigger the One-Flew-Over -The-Cuckoo's-Nest element in players like Volley. Like Duncan McRae before him, Volley appears to have taken a set against O'Gara for no fathomable reason. As with that previous incident, O'Gara would rather let it lie.

"That got completely blown out of proportion. As far as I am concerned there is no issue and that is all I have to say about that," he says initially.

When pressed, though, he does not shirk the questions. It is put to him that for a number eight, Volley seemed pre-occupied with, well, lacing into O'Gara.

"Is that a question or a statement? He is not a number eight - he wears eight. That is his job. Look, there is no previous history to us. What he did - I have no problem with the physical stuff at all. It was the verbal abuse while I was taking penalty kicks that disappointed me."

Every now and again, O'Gara encounters the odd word or two from an opponent trying to ice him as he prepares for a penalty but it generally dies away after the first kick. Volley, though, was on his case all night, machine-gunning him with comments that O'Gara is too polite to repeat.

"Family papers and everything. It couldn't be printed. Just abusin' me like. The referee spoke with him and I don't know if he continued with it after that, I was focusing on taking my kicks. Ah. It's his job. That's all I have to say about it anyhow."

O'Gara was too concerned with the actual game against Castres to bother about the commotion caused by Volley. The defeat in France leaves Munster in the predicament that is their speciality. A must-win game in the depths of winter in Thomond Park, an old-fashioned hothouse that thrives in a cold part of the world.

"Unless we win we are saying, goodbye Europe," O'Gara notes cheerfully. He enjoys the clear choices presented by these situations, preferring to term the afternoon as "a challenge" rather than as pressure. Like the rest of the Munster team, he is fairly damning in his verdict of why the team failed in the first leg.

"We weren't ruthless enough to go ahead when we were 13-12 down. I suppose our realignment of phase play wasn't what we wanted it to be. We didn't reorganise ourselves quickly through phases. Like, we were just a wee bit off the pace. The pitch was energy sapping even though we trained really well during that week and felt ready. Then we conceded a terrible try and we were just chasing the game afterwards."

The team, he says, has been flying in training this week but then he only reads so much into sessions.

"It is all in the 80 minutes," he says. On many Saturdays, he has gone through a terrible, lacklustre warm-up with his team-mates fearing the worst only to find everything clicking from the kick-off and the Munster team playing a game of true splendour. Sometimes it is impossible to know how ready they are until the match has begun. That, though, has always been one of Munster's charms.

More than most teams they have a flair for the unpredictable and for defying the odds. O'Gara strains when he is asked to remember his very first cap. "Was it in Harlequins away? I think it was, maybe, I don't know. It was, yeah."

Since then, there have been many rich chapters. The most memorable game, he says is probably Toulouse away in Bordeaux because, he says with wistful satisfaction, "it was a sunny day, it was a dry ball and we beat Toulouse at their own game". He landed a famous try that day, trailing Dominic Crotty and flying under the posts with flamboyance - "a nice little dive and a twirl, spur of the moment stuff."

The low point was the loss against Northampton (2000) when the competition was theirs to win. Their final defeat against Leicester (2002) in Cardiff is one that O'Gara refuses to make excuses for, even if Neil Back's illegal hand in the scrum denied Munster a try-scoring opportunity late in the game.

"Sure if one of our lads did that he would be a hero," O'Gara smiles. "Ah come on, that's cheating," someone counters. O'Gara can't resist. "I'd do it," he says with a grin.

Dropping goals to win games is closer to his nature but what he means is a player will do what he has to do to win. Whether that involves kicking goals or screaming at the guy who is kicking them is academic.

That is why Volley or the 50th cap or points records will be of no concern to O'Gara this afternoon. He just wants to get down to the business of securing the win Munster need.

We take another trip down This Is Your Life. Gloucester a couple of Januarys ago on a grey and nigh hopeless afternoon in Thomond. A big crowd turned up in funereal mood and were treated to something lasting. The Miracle Match. It was to be Munster's wake as they needed to win by four clear tries. O'Gara kicked the lights out that day and afterwards he claimed he didn't have a clue Munster needed 27 points to say in the competition.

"Sure it's good to keep ye guessing," he laughs. But did heknow? Ronan O'Gara throws his eyes to heaven. "Course I did."

As if we even needed to ask.