O’Gara’s touch of Old Big ’Ead

On the face of it, Brian Clough and Ronan O’Gara do not appear to have much in common: different ball games, different countries, different personalities and yet only they have achieved the most implausible of goals.

Each has taken an unfashionable club to consecutive European titles, La Rochelle’s colossal comeback victory over Leinster enabling O’Gara, alias ‘Rog’, to emulate Nottingham Forest’s feat under Clough some four decades earlier. Had ‘Old Big ‘Ead’ been watching from on high, he would have been impressed.

While they never met, the feeling would have been mutual if only for the fact that some nine years after his European double, Clough put another young man from O’Gara’s home city on the road to fame and fortune: Roy Keane.

“It’s strange to have a hero who is only a few years older (Keane is 51) but hero is the best word to describe my admiration for him,” O’Gara wrote in his autobiography. “I always loved his drive, his attitude. The way he turned himself into a great player with less talent than other top players.”

Often spotted at Thomond Park beneath a flat cap, Keane knows his rugby. He and O’Gara bumped into each other 18 years ago at the hotel outside Cardiff where both Manchester United and the Lions were staying, United before their losing FA Cup final against Arsenal, the Lions before their ill-fated tour of New Zealand.

“Lawrence Dallaglio asked him how he thought the series would go,” O’Gara recalled. “Roy told him straight: All Blacks, 3-0. Lawrence was a bit stunned.’’

It’s not known whether Dallaglio responded with his own prediction, like: “You’ll lose the Cup final after extra time, 5-4 on penalties.”

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