{"id":669897,"date":"2026-10-30T13:38:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/669897\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T13:38:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T13:38:08","slug":"inside-you-would-be-disappointed-that-they-didnt-ronan-ogara-reveals-leinster-never-approached-him-about-head-coach-vacancy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/669897\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Inside you would be disappointed that they didn\u2019t\u2019: Ronan O\u2019Gara reveals Leinster never approached him about head coach vacancy \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ronan O\u2019Gara<\/a> has revealed that he was never approached with regard to the Leinster <\/a>head coach position. <\/p>\n

Although widely touted as a potential replacement for Leo Cullen<\/a> when he steps down at the end of the current season, there was no contact from Leinster or the IRFU<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Instead, O\u2019Gara recently signed a four-year contract extension with La Rochelle<\/a> until 2031, a club with whom he has won two Champions Cups. <\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t idle conjecture that the former Munster, Ireland and Lions outhalf could be in the running. IRFU performance director David Humphreys said as much at a media briefing during Ireland\u2019s Nations Championship during the summer: \u201cOf course, I would say he\u2019ll [O\u2019Gara] be a candidate for every job that comes up in Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cI met Rog two or three months ago when La Rochelle were in Belfast, and we talked about where his coaching ambitions were.\u201d <\/p>\n

However, a globetrotting resume that saw him coach at Racing 92 and win trophies at the Crusaders in New Zealand and La Rochelle didn\u2019t merit a conversation or consideration. Not that he\u2019s pining for what never occurred. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, Leinster didn\u2019t reach out and the competitor inside you would be disappointed that they didn\u2019t because you think [why wouldn\u2019t you at least have a chat].<\/p>\n

\u201cBut like, for me, so many people are stuck in the past. Yes, as the rugby player for Munster, I didn\u2019t like Leinster and Leinster didn\u2019t like me. Let\u2019s be honest here. We\u2019re playing sport to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u2019s as a player. That\u2019s 2013 when I stopped playing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen you try and build a completely different career. Some people in Ireland don\u2019t understand that I am a professional coach that\u2019s gone around the world to be as good as I can be. And the job that I\u2019m doing here would speak quite highly of [my progress] without talking myself up; sometimes you must stand for something.\u201d<\/p>\n

During a wide-ranging interview in The Irish Times on Saturday the subject of brushes with officials and periodic suspensions also came up, ones which led to fines and cumulative bans of a couple of months in total. So, has he calmed down? <\/p>\n

He smiled: \u201cI don\u2019t have that rattiness I did as a player. A lot of it is to do with Canal [French television station] because they give \u20ac5 million to every club, so without Canal we don\u2019t have a game. That\u2019s the most important thing. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt goes well for them too, having an Irishman that doesn\u2019t speak French well, that voice is quite easily [identifiable]. They\u2019ve hidden mics in the soil in that zone but I\u2019m not proclaiming any innocence here whatsoever. Some of them are without doubt deserved sanctions. Some of them aren\u2019t. <\/p>\n

\u201cLike, over a long period of time, there must be nearly 200 games, the [number ] of infractions is quite small. Because sometimes you say, oh no, you couldn\u2019t have him because he\u2019s a hothead. You laugh at a comment like that. <\/p>\n

\u201cSome of these calls are just to keep your own sanity with the standard of officiating, sometimes it\u2019s TMO-related, where you\u2019re asking the fourth official have they checked that? Their response may absolutely trigger something incredulous where you\u2019re like, did he actually say that?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronan O\u2019Gara has revealed that he was never approached with regard to the Leinster head coach position. Although…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42553,42,12917,117866,11287,11897,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-669897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-ronan-ogara","tag-headlines","tag-irfu","tag-la-rochelle-rugby","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-munster-rugby","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}