Irish rugby legend Ronan O’Gara has gone viral after delivering a pre-match motivational speech to his La Rochelle players in his thick Cork brogue that blended French with a number of English expletives.
Former fly-half O’Gara took charge of the club in 2019, and led them to victory over Leinster in May to secure back-to-back Champions Cup triumphs.
One of rugby’s most highly-regarded young coaches, the 45-year-old began his coaching career in the French capital with Paris-based club Racing 92 after retiring in 2013.
And while O’Gara has cultivated a brilliant culture on the Atlantic coast, it would appear he is still not fully up to speed linguistically – at least when it comes to swearing.
In a stirring address before La Rochelle’s Top 14 semi-final against Bordeaux-Begles, O’Gara is heard telling his players that “l’opportunité est f****** énorme”.
Translated, O’Gara explains to his side that “there are so many things to improve in this team.
“I don’t f****** care about the opponent, it’s here. Are you hungry? Do you want to progress? Or are we f****** going on holiday on Saturday? This is not possible!”
The speech seemed to do the trick: the game, which came shortly after that win over Leinster in Dublin, saw La Rochelle beat Bordeaux-Begles 24-13 to reach progress to the Top 14 decider.
A clip of the speech shared on social media by Irish journalist Joe Naughton has so far been watched more than six million times.
Former Scotland lock Jim Hamilton described O’Gara’s address as “the greatest rugby speech, ever”, comparing it favourably to the famous “this is your Everest” speech by British and Irish Lions coach Jim Telfer during the 1997 tour of South Africa.
Telfer’s rallying cry was memorably chronicled in the Living with the Lions documentary.
O’Gara is considered likely to move into an international coaching role in the future and had preliminary discussions with the Rugby Football Union (RFU) last year before the sacking of Eddie Jones.
Steve Borthwick was appointed as Jones’s successor in December.
