THE good news for Ronan O’Gara? He’ll be right in the thick of it when, alongside the super-trendy All Blacks coach-in-waiting, Scott Robertson, he oversees the Barbarians in their meeting with a New Zealand XV at Twickenham in November. The bad news? He may be a little out of practice.
Not for the first time, the revered No 10 from Munster has found himself in scalding water with the French authorities for allowing too much of his inner Limerick to rise to the surface. The La Rochelle boss is now serving a six-week touchline ban for “disregarding the authority of a match official” during a Top 14 meeting with Lyon earlier this month.