Ronan O'Gara: La Rochelle are as hungry as ever to take down Leinster in Europe

"With all due respect it's an opposition we need to try and take care of to get to where we want to go"

Ronan O'Gara insists that La Rochelle have the hunger necessary to kill Leinster's hopes of Champions Cup glory this year.

Leinster are desperate to add a fifth star to the jersey but O'Gara says that La Rochelle are determined to conquer Europe three seasons on the spin.

"Yeah, we want to go again," he said.

READ MORE:Leinster's Leo Cullen: "There seems to be a bit of a Cork bandwagon" for Ronan O'Gara's La Rochelle

"It’s deeper, it’s touchable, so the reality is in our language there's a team in our way tomorrow, it happens to be Leinster, and after that there will be two others.

"So with all due respect it's an opposition we need to try and take care of tomorrow to get to where we want to go.

"They have their ambitions, and we respect that, but this team has done immense things and I don’t think we're anywhere near our potential, so that excites me.

"But we're aware that home advantage is huge and we need to be near our best."

O'Gara is hoping that his side get a bounce at the Aviva Stadium, where they beat Leinster in last year's final, after getting one in Cork with the welcome they got in his home city this week.

“We got out a bit," he said. "We got to mingle with the Cork public. It was just really refreshing to, I suppose, without sounding cocky obviously, just to see that you mean something to them and that was very, very nice from a personal point of view.

"And the boys had a week because the major difference I suppose between the two sides coming off a World Cup year would be the fact that a lot of them are obviously on the national team.

"But for us, the guys are at a World Cup with different nations, and then playing Six Nations obviously they weren’t available for Bayonne, which is the first game after the Six Nations, because they needed a holiday written into the legal agreement. They became available for Oyannax so we had them for that week and then the Stormers.

“We were not as cohesive as we’d like to be but I think we can hopefully skip a few steps by getting a good buzz by arriving in an unbelievable stadium with a full house and an unbelievably good sod that will hopefully bring back all the good memories of last May.”

La Rochelle have destroyed Leinster's hopes in the last three years - at home in the 2021 semi-final, the 2022 final in Marseille and in the decider last season.

The two powerhouses meet again at the sold-out Lansdowne Road venue on Saturday afternoon (5.30pm) and O'Gara is loving the rivalry.

"It is an unbelievable spectacle and it has done so much for the competition," he remarked. "There are tiny margins in the games.

"The Covid game at home for us (2021) was probably the one where we played near our best rugby and it was a 20-point difference until Leinster scored a late consolation score.

"That for us has to be the goal, that we have to be better at our rugby. I don’t think we have a problem with our mentality but we have to be better at our rugby.

"We have so many threats with and without the ball in our 23 that as a coach excites you because you have a fair idea of the game plan.

"But within that there is a fair few options so you are just looking can people pick the right option at the right time which makes it enthralling for me as a coach to be able to see what we prepared, can we transfer it under the most intense pressure of the club game.”

Meanwhile, Uini Atonio reckons La Rochelle charmed Cork and are ready to conquer Leinster in Dublin.

"Unreal, it was good," said the massive prop of the squad's trip in the Rebel County to prepare.

"We got a bit of rain when we got here but the weather's been real good. We trained up in Cork with ROG's old club, the boys got around the city to have food and a few drinks.

"I think they like us more there than the Leinster boys!"

Atonio has told Leinster they will find it tough to go through the defending champs La Rochelle to keep their Champions Cup dream alive.

The France star understands the obsession that Leo Cullen's side have to claim a fifth crown - and a first since 2018.

Atonio said: "I know Leinster has been looking for that trophy for the last three or four years, but if they want to go for that trophy they have to go through us.

"They play the way the Irish play as well, and they played real good rugby against the French.

"Look, we're a great team with a lot of young boys coming through, we're looking to strive for the best.

He added: "It's a strong Leinster side. Every year it's a strong Leinster side.

"We'll probably have to play our best rugby, I won't say we have to play our best best, but we'll have to play a good game.

"We haven't really had our team every week, it's just the last three weeks we've been able to play with everyone. We've arrived here in the Champions Cup and we're doing alright."