Once never going to be enough

Pool Four/ Leicester v Munster: Gerry Thornley on how Ronan O'Gara and co are determined to get over their recent dip in form and show the rugby world what they're made of.

Ronan O'Gara hasn't been enjoying himself lately, and particularly this week. Rarely has one utterly candid interview created such a stir, with the English seemingly aghast. He merely saw it as sticking up for his team-mates, both Munster and Irish.

In an interview with Duncan McRae in The Guardian last Tuesday, O'Gara stated that an innate belief in England's superiority is due to "where they come from", that as he'd been on the winning side in four of six matches with England, both Munster and Ireland now went over to games in that country believing they can win; that in many positions Ireland have the better players, and that Sky Sports overhype the English Premiership.

Coupled with Justin Marshall's observation that the Celtic League is every bit as good as the Premiership, this was the lead item for discussion on Sky Sports' Rugby Club on Thursday. Needless to say, Stuart Barnes and Dewi Morris took umbrage over this assertion, although the programme backed O'Gara's comments in much of its tone, if not in its timing.

For three days and counting, O'Gara's comments have been drawing a response in the English media, and while O'Gara spoke only with respect about Leicester, that has unsurprisingly been largely lost amid the furore. And while the Tigers' head coach Pat Howard takes a more cerebral view of these things, his assistant Richard Cockerill, the former headstrong and talkative Leicester hooker, has sarcastically thanked O'Gara for helping to motivate his team.

Grist to the mill and, of course, Munster themselves would be no different. Any slight would do, real or imaginary. O'Gara looked ill at ease in the Silver Key pub near Cork Con's Temple Hill last Wednesday, pointing out that the interview had been done three and a half weeks ago. He wasn't seeking to talk himself up.

"That isn't my style. Self-praise is no praise. It wasn't an article about me; I was trying to support my team-mates."

Nevertheless, he was unrepentant. "There's nothing there that I wouldn't back up and say again. If you read it all I don't think there's anything controversial in it. It's just that maybe Irish people, before, haven't backed their own. The only point I was trying to make was to promote my own backline, who have won a European Cup and yet keep getting criticised."

O'Gara added: "What I said was that we in Ireland had more talented players in certain positions, but that also means that England have more talented players in other positions."

But again, not much play is likely to be made out of that.

Almost bang on cue, Sky's interviewer Graham Simmonds walked by and interrupted the conversion.

O'Gara, smiling and with a little chuckle, said "hi, Graham". Simmonds implored O'Gara to be interviewed. "I'm in enough s*** as it is. I don't like controversy, that's not my style." Simmonds applauded O'Gara's honesty. "Great stuff."

But O'Gara still wasn't for budging.

You wonder if all of this emanated from a lack of respect for Munster's achievement. "I never thought about it like that. We've always performed better when I suppose we have been slagged and we have been slated a bit. I suppose that's been our ammunition or our fuel for driving us on. You'd be half hoping there'd be ammunition out there.

"Maybe people are saying 'he's giving Leicester all the ammunition' but I haven't said anything bad about Leicester. I fully admire them, as I said in that piece. But I think people respect the Munster team."

Of much more pressing concern is that Munster look vulnerable now. O'Gara readily agreed, and his team-mates are palpably concerned too, if not in a defeatist way. There's been a three-hour meeting earlier this week. They're all frontline players, they've been there and bought the T-shirt.

"But I back my team-mates and I hope the tournament brings out the best in us, and it awakens us, and it has to," he conceded, also admitting that their preparation hadn't been as good as it should have been, that their defence had been porous and that they lacked intensity, especially at the breakdown, where their clearing out had not been as effective as normal.

"I would admit that the intensity that we had for the European Cup final as opposed to the intensity we had for Leinster in the Celtic League was poor professionalism by us, and I hold my hand up myself. We weren't there mentally; we thought we could turn up and beat this Leinster team, and they got the result they deserved. That was a message for us."

Nobody has a closer bond to their supporters and this competition, and O'Gara was not alone in detecting a new mentality and organisation off the pitch this week. O'Gara himself was due to see a neurosurgeon yesterday to make sure his injury last week was no more than a bang on the head. "I'm not stupid enough to risk anything."

It hardly seems fair on Declan Kidney and his players. Winning the European Cup was arguably the biggest achievement of their careers. Yet one of their rewards is to present them with the biggest challenge they've ever faced. That's sport; and that goes with winning. Since the Tuesday after the final, Kidney hasn't had a night out on last year's win since, though he's seen the bump on the trophy.

"There's no guarantee that we'll ever win another one, but the only thing I could guarantee you is that the focus will be every bit as much as it was every other year. And if other teams get better than us, we'll do what we did before, we'll shake their hands, but we just need to make it as difficult for them as possible."

Paul O'Connell echoed the sentiments of O'Gara when stating that Munster put their hearts and souls into last season's achievements, "and probably made all the right noises to ourselves but the last few results have sent it home to us, and put the whole European Cup thing into the past for us. One thing we can't forget (about winning) the European Cup is how hard we worked to do it. We used to come off the pitch absolutely half-dead but the satisfaction out of playing like that was great."

Yes he's concerned, but O'Connell stressed that most of them have only had one or two, or maybe three games, and believed they have the inner ambition, competition and resolve to dig as deep again as last season. He reckons they would either going to hit the ground running and play with super confidence or have a hiccup which would force them to examine themselves.

"I don't think there's any miracle cure, but with the personalities that are there I think we'll pull through sooner rather than later."

There have been three books, a DVD is due shortly, and they've done hundreds of interviews, and O'Connell conceded a tad wearily that it would be preferable if they didn't have to revisit May 20th, but that it goes with the commercial territory.

This past week or so, O'Connell has thought more about Leicester at the turn of the millennium, winning four domestic leagues in succession, combining the latter two with back-to-back European Cups.

"I think that's the kind of ambition we have in the team, certainly in some players and probably in most, and I think that's what will pull us through."

This summer and early season they've trained their asses off, said O'Connell, borne as much out of fear as anything else, whereas last season they may have been a little clever.

"The work-rate and the work ethic is there. If that's combined with a little more smartness and efficiency on the pitch, I think we'll be even better than we were last season."

They still have to work so much harder for their tries than most and one curiosity is how a bigger share of the prize fund and an estimated €1 million-plus from gate receipts alone from a home quarter-final (the profits from which would have been inflated by about €600,000 by moving it from Thomond Park) didn't manifest itself in at least one big summer signing. Again, admittedly, because the provinces are centrally contracted, and the IRFU receive the bonus from the prize fund from Munster and Leinster's achievements, this is a vague area.

Munster again appear to be crying out for a sharper cutting edge out wide, for example Agen's Fijian flyer Rupeni Caucaunibuca - truculence et al - or the Biarritz Fijian Sereli Bobo. It would have added so much to their game. But how much of those quarter-final gate receipts go directly into Munster's coffers and transfer funds is unclear. Kidney also stresses that 50 per cent of the provinces' role is to produce home grown players. They are also obliged to strengthen their squad with a view to the Magners Celtic League, hence the need for Federico Pucciariello, Chris Wyatt and Tim McGann, and "competing with the commercial entities that are the leading English or French clubs is a magnificent achievement."

Restriction on overseas imports limited them to one player, and Kidney went through each of the Southern Hemisphere countries, the ripple effects of Super 14 expansions, the onset of the World Cup and the All Blacks' demands on their frontline players in highlighting how difficult it has been to find another Caucau or Bobo. Right enough, one can't think of too many such arrivals on the European stage.

Another centre from Taranaki, Lifiemi Mafi, didn't seem as great a need as a flyer out wide, to give them that potential to score from long-range. The departure of three centres, Rob Henderson, Mike Mullins and Gary Connolly created a greater need inside as he saw it. "Were Munster a commercial entity," Kidney added, that would be a different matter, or as he put it: "If somebody would give me the winning lottery ticket, we'd do it."

In the heel of the hunt, one imagines that Kidney and the rest of the brains trust, both management and players, will find the technical and mental triggers to seriously crank up the level of their performance tomorrow.

"This is a fresh competition. Everybody starts on a clean sheet, let's see how we go. All we can judge ourselves on is ourselves. The players have been disappointed with what's gone on, fairly critical. We have to keep a handle on that, and put a reality on getting things right. And 90 per cent of it they know themselves.

"It was great winning it, but now we'll find out if we're the type of people that want to win it again. Maybe once would have been nice back in 2000, but not after the last six years."