{"id":269702,"date":"2026-01-06T05:19:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/269702\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T05:19:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:19:14","slug":"ruaidhri-oconnor-irfu-should-be-plotting-ronan-ogaras-return-to-irish-rugby-and-leinster-could-be-the-perfect-entry-point","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/269702\/","title":{"rendered":"R\u00faaidhr\u00ed O\u2019Connor: IRFU should be plotting Ronan O\u2019Gara\u2019s return to Irish rugby \u2013 and Leinster could be the perfect entry point"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ronan O'Gara. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/10268697-6f57-490c-9bd1-153d8c406ded.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Ronan O&#8217;Gara. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It\u2019s time to start planning for the return of Ronan O\u2019Gara to Irish rugby. The Munster and Ireland legend has so far conducted his glittering, 13-year coaching career offshore, with stints as an assistant at Racing 92 and the Crusaders before stepping up to the top job in La Rochelle.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">This Saturday, he returns to Lansdowne Road to renew his great rivalry with Leinster, and for those 80 minutes, the old fires will burn as the two sides who have met in six successive European seasons go head-to-head once again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ronan O&#8217;Gara. Photo: Brendan Moran\/Sportsfile It\u2019s time to start planning for the return of Ronan O\u2019Gara to Irish&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[65159,70904,18,19,17,34991,12861,4934,132,23201],"class_list":{"0":"post-269702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ronan-ogara","9":"tag-andy-farrell","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-irish-rugby-football-union-irfu","14":"tag-leinster-rugby","15":"tag-ruaidhri-oconnor","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-stuart-lancaster"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115846470968490990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}