"It was difficult for a day or two but the most important thing is that people that know me realise there was no truth in those stories whatsoever, " O'Gara (30) told the Sunday Tribune yesterday.

"On the gambling front, it doesn't bother me because I'll say it straight out, I do back horses . . . I back them frequently. I own racehorses and I've done that since I was 18. To hear I have a troubled marriage is quite disappointing.

It's not for me to say that I have a perfect marriage. Like everyone else we have small little things but that's behind closed doors at home. . . I don't want to make any statement on it. I love my wife and I hope she loves me and that's all I'll say."

After a week when rumours followed him from Bordeaux to Paris, Ronan O'Gara faced his critics head-on after Friday night's game.

Things came to a head on Tuesday when an article in L'Equipe, a national sports newspaper in France, carried a line about the Irish out-half 's reported gambling debt. Irish coach Eddie O'Sullivan and Brian O'Driscoll defended the Munster man in public, and gave a stinging rebuke to the French journalist in private.

"I saw it and said, 'Jesus, I can't believe that's in the paper'. I just rang Jess [his wife] and said 'this is going to be in the Irish papers too', so I just braced her for it, " he said.

"From Wednesday on, it's been fine. It's hard when you're here and you're in a hotel and you're only getting bits of it. I saw the translation from L'Equipe and I see I owe 300,000 or something like that. That's a load of nonsense. A lot of the boys thought it was very funny but there's a serious side to it too. It was upsetting for a day or two but then there was no problem after that."

However, O'Gara admitted: "I didn't expect this starting off in rugby. I didn't ask for public attention. My family don't either. I don't ask for support either, but the amount of people that have been on to me in the past week has been brilliant.

They know it's not an issue. Most of the texts are pretty funny, slagging me, that kind of thing."

And he pointed out a potential benefit: "Those rumours have been going around for a year. I suppose the one good thing that came out of this was that they went to press and hopefully it's put to bed."