{"id":661893,"date":"2026-10-30T17:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T17:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661893\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T17:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T17:36:10","slug":"you-would-be-disappointed-ronan-ogara-reveals-leinster-never-approached-him-about-head-coach-vacancy-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/661893\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You would be disappointed\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

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, and is fully committed to rebuilding and winning further silverware including an elusive Top 14 title. On and off the field he couldn\u2019t be happier.<\/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":661894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,5432,46,297977,148902,170299,175632,105],"class_list":["post-661893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-irfu","tag-israel","tag-la-rochelle-rugby","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-munster-rugby","tag-ronan-ogara","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=661893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}