A rugby miscellany compiled by GAVIN CUMMISKEY
O'Gara comes clean: Umaga hitch
RONAN O’GARA spoke last week about Munster’s season going down the drain.
“Last year we didn’t qualify, it was different this year,” said O’Gara. There’s no doubt about it, I think this year we should have got to Twickenham, but ‘should’ and ‘are’ are two different things in sport.
“That’s probably what hurts – you don’t know if you’d be good enough to win a competition this year, but with what had gone on it would have been a good achievement by the group to get to Twickenham. At least you could feel proud of what you’d achieved. But at the minute it’s six games out of six in the pool down the suwannee and there’s a small bit of wondering where you go next.”
Maybe Tana Umaga can help. Short-listed to replace the departing Tony McGahan as head coach next season, there is a slight problem: the legendary All Black centre is contracted to his current coaching post with Counties Manukau into the start of next season.
Munster will want him on site for the summer.
“He’s served us well for the two and a half years hes been with us so far, so if he did decide this was a step up and it was pursuing his dream and ambition, I guess he would go with our blessing,” said Counties CEO Andrew Maddock. “Though we certainly don’t want to lose him. It’s a two-fold message.”
In showing the usual lack of knowledge about Irish rugby, the New Zealand Herald added: “Umaga might be a brave choice for the Limerick-based team. There’s still some baggage surrounding him in the Emerald Isle after the role he played in Lions captain Brian O’Driscoll being invalided out of the tour to New Zealand in 2005.”
O'Gara comes clean: Umaga hitch
He went for a run yesterday under the guidance of our physio John Roche and Rochey reckons hes never seen a man more possessed than Richie McCaw at the moment so I dont think hes going to be too far away – were looking at two weeks time.
– The World Cup winning captain appears to be timing his return just in time for Ireland’s three-Test tour in June. Great.
Ferris calls foul: Retraction
OH DEAR. Twitter has a habit of getting people into trouble. Stephen Ferris seems to have had a brain freeze when suggesting boxer Martin Rogan’s fifth-round knockout at the hands of Tyson Fury in Belfast on Saturday night was “fixed”.
The two Ulster sports stars had met earlier in the day but when Rogan subsequently saw the tweet he responded aggressively: @StephenFerris6 just met you at the Lisburn rd how dare you say a fix I am a true fighter y didn’t you say it to my face you card .
It got worse (with errors a plenty but the message was clear) as Rogan added: “call yourself a sportsman how can you even say what you said I don’t disrespect any sporting person.ed”
Ferris apologised and deleted his tweet later in the day. Rogan accepted the apology but it was all a bit embarrassing.
