“One thing Ireland are badly missing right now…” – Ronan O’Gara tells it straight
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Badly missing.
For all the talk around tactics, selections and ageing profiles, Ronan O’Gara believes Ireland’s biggest issue right now is far harder to diagram on a whiteboard.
Confidence.
Speaking candidly about the current mood around Irish rugby, O’Gara painted a picture of a team not just battling opponents, but battling itself — and the noise that comes with slipping standards after a period of sustained success.
“I’m in a good position to comment on this because I’ve been living this for a longer number of months than the Ireland management have,” O’Gara explained, with La Rochelle experiencing a difficult drop in form at the moment.
“And this is exactly what’s happening when you’ve had success, and you lose it, and you lose confidence, and it spirals out of control, really, where it’s like the sea, and you’re trying to turn the tide.”
It’s a familiar cycle in elite sport. Win consistently, and everything feels easy. Lose that edge, and suddenly the same actions become laboured, heavy, and mentally draining.
“It’s not easy to do because one of the most underappreciated ingredients in sport is confidence,” O’Gara said.
“There are days when we are doing an activity on the pitch, and it’s so easy, and there are days when you’re doing the same activity on the pitch, and it is so difficult.”
For Ireland, the problem has been compounded by a rapidly shifting narrative. A side once praised for clarity and cohesion is now being questioned from every angle — form, age profile, direction, and energy.
“The narrative now around Ireland is negative,” O’Gara admitted.
“It’s difficult, it’s an ageing team, they’re out of form, and people will always give their opinion, and they’re fully entitled to give their opinion.”
O’Gara doesn’t dismiss that criticism — but he highlights the cumulative toll it takes.
“So much of that is true, but not alone are you battling what you can control; you’re trying to battle what you can’t control,” he said.
“And it becomes nearly a vicious trap of eating away at your mental reserves. By game day, you don’t have as much energy as you’d like to have for giving everything you can.”
That reality leaves Andy Farrell facing one of the toughest phases of any coaching cycle. After unprecedented success, the challenge now is psychological as much as tactical.
“That’s sport,” O’Gara concluded.
“And especially for someone like Faz who has been so successful in what he’s done, and now he’s probably on a bit of a rebuild cycle.”
Turning the tide, as O’Gara puts it, won’t happen overnight. But if Ireland are to rediscover what made them so formidable, it may start not with a system tweak — but with restoring belief.
DAN BIGGAR & RONAN O’GARA TEAM UP WITH Heineken® 0.0 FOR TWO EXCLUSIVE IRISH LIVE SHOWS
BIGGS & ROG On The FLY
In Association With Heineken® 0.0
Hosted by two of the game’s most influential fly halves, Welsh Rugby Star Dan Biggar and Ireland’s own Ronan O’Gara, BIGGS & ROG On The FLY in association with Heineken® 0.0 will take place at the newly reopened Savoy, Cork on March 04th, with the final pre-match showdown at The Harcourt Hotel in Dublin on March 05th.
Rivals by nation. Icons by reputation. Brought together by Heineken® 0.0.
