Ronan O’Gara Responds To Connacht Rumours

Ronan O’Gara is one of the many names who have been linked with the soon to be vacant Connacht head coach position.

Current boss Pat Lam will leave his post at the end of the current season to take up the Director of Rugby role with Premiership strugglers Bristol. The announcement came as a shock to Connacht fans this week, but CEO Willie Ruane has revealed they are already searching for a successor.

O’Gara has been touted as a possible canditate by several media outlets, following a hugely successful spell with Top 14 side Racing 92. The former Ireland and Munster playmaker arrived in France as a kicking coach and has already worked himself up to defence boss.

The former outhalf however, signed a new three-year deal back in March, and speaking in his Irish Examiner column today, O’Gara has said that Connacht have not been in contact and that right now he is too invested in Racing Metro to even consider leaving.

Connacht haven’t been in touch with me. Even if they had, it’s just too early for me to consider something like that at home. I don’t want to give up what we have at Racing at this stage, I am too interested in it, too much invested in it just to up sticks.

Racing were in the final of the European Cup and won the Top 14 last season. It doesn’t get much better than that. And that didn’t materialise overnight, more than three years work has gone into that. I am 39 now. I have time. If I was going home to Ireland, it mightn’t even be for coaching. Nobody should pigeon-hole themselves into career boxes.

People in Ireland have long believed that it’s only a matter of time before ROG comes up to take up a role with Munster or Ireland, but he states that things may not work out the way everyone perceives.

There appears to be this pre-ordained career path for myself that has directed me to France to learn my trade before a certain team in Ireland comes calling. I am not even thinking of any such job, because that’s not where my head’s at.

If the sad events of recent times tell us anything it’s that you only control one day: That’s today. Chances are my career won’t work out the way people perceive it. Indeed I am pretty sure — sure as anyone can be — that it won’t. If I am asked, I will go where there’s a project that interests me.

Do you think O’Gara would have been a good fit at Connacht?