Monday midday, upon arriving in front of the customs officers at Cork airport, the La Rochelle players realized where they were setting foot. “It was incredible,” laughs forwards coach Donnacha Ryan, “the guys didn’t even have to take out their passports. They were a little shocked by so much familiarity! » That’s what their manager Ronan O’Gara wanted by taking them for three days of training in the city where he is a bit of a living god – even if the French have no idea what the “Freedom of Cork”, the city’s highest distinction with which he was decorated in 2017 and which John Fitzgerald Kennedy received a long time ago.
