Emmet Moloney writes for the 'The Irish Farmers Journal' and is a former sports columnist with 'The Kerryman'.

The end of the World Cup dream brings with it the end of an adventure for one of the finest players to don the number 10 jersey for Ireland, writes Emmet Moloney...

It wasn’t supposed to be this way, with some of the Irish world cup rugby squad limping into Dublin Airport on Tuesday, exhausted and downcast but naturally with heads held high. While a quarter-final was always the lowest of our realistic expectations, their performances against Australia and Italy had given rise to expectation. Huge expectation. It wasn’t to be. For that we are sad for them and for ourselves, but we shouldn’t forget those two weeks of hoping, believing and savouring.

We can count on the one hand the amount of times we have all gotten up before the crack of dawn to watch an Irish team or sporting icon in action. Who remembers Rosmuc’s Sean Mannion boxing for the world title back in the early ’80s? John Treacy in the Olympic marathon of 1984? To that mix we can add last Saturday. Anti-climax it might have been, but the buzz before it? Well, that’s what sport is all about.

The post-match interviews offered us a rare insight into Brian O’Driscoll and Declan Kidney. O’Driscoll knows this was his last shot and it was written all over his face. His stellar career deserved more than this, but it didn’t happen for him and he was struggling to let that sink in.

Kidney was his usual calm and reflective self; it had sunk in. While he just might have another chance at this level, it will hardly be as tempting as this one. He knows, too, that the Welsh won’t win the World Cup, but Ireland certainly were capable of it. The All Blacks are dropping like flies, the French are always beatable and the Aussies we had already figured out. This was supposed to be our time.

The likelihood is that we won’t have players like Ronan O’Gara around when the Six Nations offers us redemption against the Welsh (we will beat them next spring) and we’ll all be a little bit poorer for that. Brian O’Driscoll and Paul O’Connell will probably stick around for at least one more season but ROG sounded and looked like a man who’s going to leave international rugby behind him. So indulge me here for a few hundred words.

O’Gara was a character in the Irish sense of the word. The hands in the pockets for the Queen, his frank and brutally honest post-match interviews, his low tolerance for fools. And of course whatever a professional rugby player could go through, he went through it. Lions tours, World Cup disasters, the ignominy of having giants trample all over him. He always bounced back. From missing a kick that could have won the Heineken Cup back in 2000 he was the man still answering the call 11 years later for Ireland.

You couldn’t but admire O’Gara. Had he been playing rugby in the ’70s or ’80s he would certainly be regarded as the greatest out-half Ireland ever produced. Better than Kyle, better than Ward or Dean and, yes, better than Ollie Campbell. Strong words. But there’s a case to be made.
YouTube is a wonderful tool for peering into a player’s career. Take a trip down memory lane some time and check out the acknowledged greatest out-halves of all time: the Welsh heroes of the ’70s, Barry John and his able successor Phil Bennett. O’Gara was bigger than both of them.

Yet when Ronan came on the scene for Ireland and Munster around the close of the last century, rugby had changed. Flankers were no longer Fergus Slattery sizes. They were big men, with the bulk to go with it. And most of them took one look at Ronan and thought to themselves: “I’m running over that!”

And many of them did. But O’Gara always tried his best to hold onto them until David Wallace arrived and sent them packing. Tony Ward or Ollie Campbell never had that problem. Back then, forwards tackled forwards and the light backs, on the rare occasion they were called into action, tackled the light backs. It was a system that suited everyone. There were no Jonah Lomus in them days. Bennett and Barry John were never expected to tackle; they had to do their magic with the ball – not without it.

Ronan never had that luxury. The modern game doesn’t allow for any facet of the basics to go unchecked. So he knuckled down, bulked up a bit, and put his 12/13 stone frame on the line every time he went out on the field. You cannot hide on a professional rugby field when you play at that level and he never did. For the Lions, Ireland and Munster, O’Gara turned up to play every time. Even when it was patently going wrong for him, he never took the easy way out.

Taking the ball from the flat position closest to the opposing defence was a brave tactic and few were braver than him. That’s the quality that will be hardest to replace. He had balls.

His retirement has definitely been hastened by the arrival of Johnny Sexton, a yet to be fully polished number ten, but one who already has the physical attributes O’Gara was never blessed with. In the modern game, the Sexton model is the way forward. He will now take over the 10 jersey for some time to come – injury permitting.

O’Gara knows this. To displace young Jonny for the Italian and Welsh games these past few weeks was nothing short of remarkable. He definitely arrived in New Zealand as the second choice – close enough to his Leinster rival, but second choice nonetheless. But he did it again, confounded the obituary writers and got the nod for those two crucial games.

Will he confound these obits? Anything’s possible, but a season or two in Munster until they can unveil or sign his successor looks the more likely option, with the Irish days a thing of the past.

So what will he do next? Here’s a suggestion: sit into George Hook’s seat on RTÉ. Ronan would call it as he sees it and wouldn’t you love to hear his thoughts, freed of the playing straitjacket. Martin Johnson’s England? Over to you, Ronan.

There’s a natural end to things and the World Cup was O’Gara’s in the Irish team. If this was America, they’d retire the number 10 jersey. To catch Emmet's latest column, get 'The Irish Farmers' Journal' every Thursday...