One of the blessing having Ronan O'Gara as a coach is that he is brutally honest. The Corkonian has never been afraid to speak his mind and challenge his players and it's worked to great effect.
However, the two-time Champions Cup winners haven't started the Top 14 season all too well and their latest result came. as a surprise to everyone as they loss at home to newly-promoted Vannes 23-14.
O'Gara had selected a fairly strong team for the visit of the Brittany side, starting Will Skelton, Uini Atonio and Jonathan Danty to name a few while Vannes had one very recognisable name in the form of Mako Vunipola.
La Rochelle actually had the lead for a decent portion of the game through two tries from hooker Quentin Lespiaucq, but Vannes came back with two scores of their own before three late penalties from out-half Maxime Lafage gave Vannes just their third win of the season.
For La Rochelle however this was their third loss in their last 4 games following defeats away at Montpellier and Castres. They have now slipped to fifth in the Top 14 table. Speaking after the match, Ronan O'Gara questioned his players commitment in their performance and also questioned his preparation of the squad.
Of course, I wonder if I prepared well for the week, the context of the match. But in rugby, you need commitment, appetite, will, three extremely important values and we lacked them.
The thing that disappointed me the most was the content. What was that? A total lack of precision. We didn’t show anything in front of our loyal supporters.
It was a home game before a Champions Cup game and we failed everywhere. And the main architect was me. It was a big slap in the face.
He continued on to say this recent run of form has been the worst of his spell at La Rochelle while saying it was good for the league that Vannes won.
It's a great result for the sport, but it's a catastrophic result for me. If you put in a commitment like that, you deserve it. Vannes learned from last week: if you keep knocking on the door, it will open. Vannes did that, and congratulations to them.
But on the other hand, we've hit rock bottom! When you do that, you can't touch it again.
They face Bath on Friday night as they kick off their Champions Cup campaign at The Rec where we'll get to see if Ronan O'Gara can turn La Rochelle's fortunes around.
