Ronan O'Gara: 'We chatted, and not alone was he offended, I was offended'
Ronan O'Gara has expressed dismay at the exclusion of La Rochelle flyhalf Antoine Hastoy from France's Guinness Six Nations squad.
La Rochelle admittedly struggled at the start of the Top 14 season with only one win in their first six matches and consecutive losses in their initial Champions Cup pool games. However, under O'Gara's guidance, the team has recently found form, securing five victories in their last seven domestic games and earning significant European wins against Leicester and Sale to advance the defence of their title.
The omission by France's head coach Fabien Galthie of Hastoy in the wider Six Nations squad is puzzling, especially as Romain Ntamack is unavailable. The decision is further questioned as Galthie introduced 21-year-old Léo Barré to the squad to address a fitness concern with the current first-choice flyhalf Matthieu Jalibert.
O'Gara's frustration is palpable considering Hastoy's contributions and the recent upswing in La Rochelle's performances.
Writing in his Irish Examiner column this weekend, O'Gara addressed the snubbing: "Antoine Hastoy scored 20 points for us last Sunday in Sale. I think he may have had a point to prove after being excluded from the French 6N squad.
"Maybe if Romain Ntamack had been around I could accept if not fully understand it but to be left out of a squad in the circumstances Antoine was the biggest look-in-the-mirror moment he will ever get.
"We chatted, and not alone was he offended, I was offended. And the parting words didn’t even need to be ventilated: Now what are you going to do about it?"
France play Ireland in their opening game of the Six Nations in Marseille this coming Friday.
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After a fairly simple Pac4, the BFs will find out a lot about themselves in September when they face the rampaging RedRoses at Twickenham in front of a record crowd. After that they will face them again in Canada in WXV1. They also have France to contend with. Will be interesting to see what Australia have to offer with Jo Yapp at the helm.
Go to commentsSuper Rugby Pacific has been better as a spectacle due to the emphasis on speeding the game up and I’d look at taking things a step further. Instead of giving teams 90 seconds to take a conversion, let’s bring that down 60 seconds. You could also look at allowing 45 seconds for a penalty goal. Maybe teams could get 20 seconds instead of 30 to form a scrum before the ref then starts the engagement process. However, this year the most pleasing change is the added competitiveness in the Trans Tasman matches. What does frustrate me is how the rugby media in Australasia allow the the whole ‘‘rugby is boring’’/’’rugby yawnion’’ narrative to take hold from from vindictive league types, the chairman of the ARL commission and News Limited Australia. Stick up for the game and shift the narrative!
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