McGahan lauds 'outstanding' O'Gara

Munster coach Tony McGahan hailed Ronan O'Gara's display in his side's gritty 24-23 Heineken Cup victory over Pool 1 opponents Perpignan at Thomond Park as "an outstanding performance from an outstanding player".

Tony McGahan Tony McGahan [PA]

Man-of-the-match O'Gara, whose goal-kicking has come in to question in recent weeks, scored all of Munster's points with seven penalties and a drop goal as McGahan's side stayed on track to qualify for the quarter-finals for the twelfth successive year. Perpignan will get a shot at revenge on Sunday week, though, when the French champions host Munster at the Stade Aime Giral.

"I thought Ronan O'Gara was outstanding. He has been outstanding even since he came back into the camp after the autumn internationals," said McGahan. "He is a tremendously strong-willed person. He did not lose his belief and we certainly did not lose our belief in him."

He added: "It was an outstanding performance from an outstanding player. Everyone is delighted for him."

The Australian also paid tribute to his side's "experience and fortitude" as they recovered from conceding two tries to Yoann Vivalda and Nicolas Durand inside the opening 13 minutes, and also from Philip Burger's stunning 70th-minute solo effort.

He added: "I thought our experience and fortitude brought us through. Perpignan went ahead with seven or eight minutes to go and we came back again.

"We put ourselves on the line to make sure we got that match-winning penalty at the end.

"We just came to get the four points, so that was a big result for us. We would liked to have kept them to zero, but four points was what the job entailed."

McGahan claimed the decision to disallow Denis Hurley's 76th-minute try for a knock on in the lead-up to the score was a tight decision.

"For Denis Hurley's effort it looked very close. It certainly was a tough, tough decision," he added. "It could have gone either way, but the way things are going for us we are not getting any of those. It was a 50-50 decision, We have to live with that."

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