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Furious Leinster fans take to Twitter as province confirm Carbery's Munster move

Joey Carbury

As first revealed this morning on RugbyPass, Leinster have confirmed that Joey Carbery is to switch the provincial rivals Munster.

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The official confirmation was largely greeted with dismay and anger from Leinster fans on Twitter.

Many Leinster fans wanted the talented flyhalf to stay at the province despite mostly appearing for the European Champions from the bench throughout the season. However, the IRFU were clear that they wanted to push through the move to allow Carbery to get regular starting game time at a big club side.

For weeks any move was meant to be north to Ulster, but it appears that the IRFU have found a secondary path that will see Carbery instead travel south to Leinster’s traditional rivals Munster.

RugbyPass reported last month that the IRFU wanted to work a switch deal that would see a Munster player travel to Ulster to fill the vacant gap at 10 keft by Paddy Jackson’s exit – a role that Carbery appeared reluctant to fill.

Despite the obvious advantages to Irish Rugby, many Leinster fans are angry that they the province were effectively forced to give up a player that wanted to stay in Dublin. Leinster also publically stated the same in recent weeks.

One fan put it: “Seriously annoyed that the IRFU feel this is an acceptable way to treat a player and a team. First they brought in the “if you leave the country you won’t be selected” rule and now we have the “if you don’t play where we say you won’t be selected” rule

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“Dangerous times ahead.”

https://twitter.com/rob_chadwick/status/1002183071460941825

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The switch deal that had been mooted might yet see Keatley move to Ulster.

Such a deal could be enough to satisfy both parties, with Ulster getting an experienced 10 in Ian Keatley, while Carbery gets to play at a province that more closely matches Leinster’s ability to make the closing stages of competitions.

Keatley could potentially act as a better mentor to promising Ulster 10 Jonny McPhilips than Carbery could.

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Carbery made his break-through for Leinster at the start of the 2016/17, when selected to start in the home game against Zebre.

In October 2016, he was selected on the Ireland national squad to play against New Zealand at Soldier Field, Chicago, in the opening game of the November test series where Ireland won 40-29, brought on as a substitute in the 59th minute earning his first Ireland cap in the historic victory.

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Flankly 41 minutes ago
Irish provinces in danger of being left further behind, in their own country

Sometimes the explanations lie within, sometimes without. And we don’t always look the right way.


The story of top flight rugby is that what won yesterday is not what wins today. The standards are improving and the margins are narrowing.


I don’t think the Irish provinces have regressed in quality, so much as the bar has been raised, and it keeps getting higher. A team needs to be really good in every department and to play to their potential in order not to be beaten by a mid-table team. Nobody takes Benetton lightly anymore. The Scottish teams are serious contenders. We're two games from the end of the regular season and there are 14 teams vying for the 8 playoff slots. And if it weren’t for the implosion in Welsh rugby administration in recent years, you’d have to believe that things would be even more competitive.


Also, independent of general trends, SA rugby is going from strength to strength. The Ireland teams lost all of their games this last weekend, but the SA teams won all of their games. That’s not going to happen every time, but its consistent with the overall reality that SA has been succeeding at national level, is supplying dozens of top players (and some coaches) to non-SA clubs, and has a rising tide of nextgen players that are increasingly in evidence. There could easily be 3 SA teams in the URC playoffs, and while none of them would be favorites against Leinster in a final, any of them would be legit contenders.


There is work to do in the non-Dublin Irish teams, but I would characterise it as needing to get ahead and stay ahead of the league, rather than a loss of quality per se.

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