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'He was cold to me' - Ronan O'Gara reveals Steven Hansen's suspicions over having an Irish Crusaders coach

Ronan O'Gara and Steve Hansen. (Photos by Kai Schwoerer and Cameron Spencer / Getty Images)

NZ Herald

Former Ireland star and Crusaders assistant coach Ronan O’Gara has revealed his frosty relationship with All Blacks coach Steve Hansen.

O’Gara joined the Crusaders as an assistant coach in 2018, spending two seasons working under Scott Robertson before being appointed as head coach of French side La Rochelle.

The partnership was extremely successful – the Crusaders winning the Super Rugby title in both of O’Gara’s seasons with the team – but the former Irish first-five explained that not everything was so smooth in his relationship with Hansen.

“He was cold to me,” O’Gara told Irish website Off The Ball. “He was cold to me in my time [with the Crusaders].”

With very few overseas coaches having high-profile roles in New Zealand Super Rugby sides, O’Gara indicated that Hansen wasn’t completely sold on having a top Irish coach amongst one of New Zealand’s best rugby set-ups.

“I think maybe the fact that it was never really done before and Steve Hansen has been around for a long time,” O’Gara said.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4HN_-tg79l/

“I kind of made up with him a year or two later, but I think at the start he struggled to get his head around what I was doing there.

“Particularly with the World Cup coming up, particularly with Ireland going so well.

“I went in and got a good reaction out of the Crusaders players and a lot of them are All Blacks. I’d say it was strange at the start that I was coming in.”

There was some speculation amongst fans during the week of the All Blacks’ World Cup quarter-final against Ireland that Ireland coach Joe Schmidt could call on O’Gara to provide information from his time working with many of the All Blacks at the Crusaders, but O’Gara said that he didn’t hear from either side.

And, he says that there were no hard feelings with Hansen.

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“I shook hands with him and made it clear that I have ambitions of my own to try and coach at the highest level.”

That could include with the All Blacks, as the NZ Herald understands that Robertson has considering coaxing O’Gara back from France to form part of his All Blacks coaching team as several top candidates put their hand up to replace Hansen.

This article first appeared on the New Zealand Herald and is republished with permission here. 

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J
JW 1 hour ago
Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones

This piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.


I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.


Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.


The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.

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LONG READ Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones Why England's defence of the realm has crumbled without Felix Jones
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