Confirmed – Ronan O’Gara will leave Racing 92 to join Crusaders

Ronan O’Gara will leave French side Racing 92 at the beginning of January to take up a coaching role with Crusaders in New Zealand.

The Cork man had been linked with the Crusaders over the past few weeks.

Today, Racing 92 released a statement confirming that O’Gara would be released from his contract at the end of December.

The top 14 club also stated that they “did not want to deprive one of its faithful servants of a great development opportunity”.

Découvrez le communiqué de Presse du Racing 92 concernant Ronan O'Gara, entraîneur Adjoint dans le staff technique. https://t.co/ujUwojkLqN pic.twitter.com/sqn1mc9DgL

— Racing 92 (@racing92) November 22, 2017

The statement in English reads:

Ronan O’Gara, assistant coach in the technical staff of Racing 92, at the club since July 2013, has been asked by the New Zealand province of Crusaders to occupy, from 1 January 2018, the position of coach assistant in charge of three quarters.

The former number 10 of the Irish team wanted to respond favourably to this proposal which will allow him to enrich his knowledge of rugby and improve his training methods.

Racing 92 did not want to deprive one of its faithful servants of a great development opportunity. Thus, despite his contract running until 2019, Ronan O’Gara will be released from his obligations to the club at the end of December.

For its part, Racing 92 will obviously compensate for this departure and reorganize to maintain all its competitiveness.

Jacky Lorenzetti, President of Racing 92, joins his coaches Laurent Labit and Laurent Travers to wish good luck to Ronan who notably worked to conquer the Brennus shield at Camp Nou in June 2016.