French may be the language of Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Voltaire, but sometimes it takes a rugby player from Cork to inject extra oomph, reports The Guardian.
Ronan O’Gara, a former Ireland international who coaches the French club La Rochelle, has lit up the internet with a pep talk to his team that seamlessly blended French with English swearing, graced with a Cork accent.
“L’opportunité est fucking énorme,” he told his players on the eve of a match against Bordeaux.
They needed to focus on their own performance, he said, jabbing a finger. “Je m’en fucking fous d’adversaire”, O’Gara exhorted, which can be translated as “I don’t give a fucking damn about the opposition”.
Were they hungry to win the game, he asked, his voice rising, or were they planning on taking a “fucking … vacance”?
It was not a speech to win a medal from the Académie Française language watchdog, or to land an invitation to present next year’s Eurovision, but the clip has amassed millions of views and widespread praise.