Johnny Sexton and Ronan O’Gara test rivalry to the limit in Champions Cup final

Forget the Cannes film festival which has been running all week. If people want to enjoy absorbing, character-heavy drama they need only venture down the Mediterranean coast to the Stade Vélodrome where a brooding, Shakespearean-style duel awaits. For Romeo and Tybalt, read Johnny Sexton and Ronan O’Gara.

Because while Saturday afternoon’s Champions Cup final is nominally between Leinster and La Rochelle, there should be a twinkling neon sign outside the ground with the strapline: “When Johnny met ROG”. Two great Irish No 10s, two of rugby’s most relentlessly competitive men, only one winners’ podium.

Sport is full of classic rivalries but the pair’s former Irish teammate Brian O’Driscoll laughs out loud when asked if O’Gara, once of Munster and now the head coach of La Rochelle, might have a personal motive to outwit Sexton and his impressive Leinster posse.

“Of course,” snorts O’Driscoll. “He’s a competitor. All rugby players have egos. No one wants someone else to be considered better or to have had greater achievements. That’s the reality and if they say otherwise they’re an absolute liar. You can be sure it’ll be some motivation.”

In the case of O’Gara and Sexton there has been a distinct edge ever since they were vying for the same Irish No 10 shirt. There is also that famous photo from the 2009 European semi-final between Leinster and Munster, with the younger Sexton screaming down at his fallen rival as the game turned in favour of the boys in blue. For a while the pair went out of their way to avoid each other. As O’Gara once put it, it was “the trickiest relationship I’ve ever experienced with any player”.

The permafrost did thaw slightly when they were both employed by Racing 92 in Paris and O’Gara sent Sexton