CONTRACT NEGOTIATIONS: UNLIKE TOMÁS O'Leary, Luke Fitzgerald has been offered a new two-year Ireland contract although discussions between his agent Fintan Drury and the IRFU remain ongoing – as they have been for several months.
Drury renegotiated national deals for Jonathan Sexton and Jamie Heaslip last year and is currently attempting to reach agreements for Fitzgerald and Gordon D’Arcy to remain at Leinster.
The career flight paths of O’Leary and Fitzgerald have been relatively similar these past three seasons. Both were selected for the 2009 Lions squad before a succession of injuries and subsequent dips in form saw them miss out on selection for last autumn’s World Cup squad.
O’Leary is poised to join Perpignan in France next season, having lost his starting place at Munster to Conor Murray, but Fitzgerald remains a central part of Joe Schmidt’s Leinster backline.
“We’d love Luke to be here and obviously the IRFU want Luke to be here so it’s a matter of them negotiating and hopefully coming to deal,” said Leinster manager Guy Easterby yesterday. “Luke’s from Leinster, he’s been involved in the squad since he’s 18. He’s 24 now and there’s a hell of a lot of rugby left in him and we certainly hope he’s playing that here.”
Fitzgerald was returning to his best form until a neck injury scuppered any chance of making the Six Nations squad. He is expected back on the training pitch this week with a decision on whether he, and Andrew Conway, will be fit for Saturday’s Pro 12 game in Glasgow (kick-off – 6pm) to be made on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the IRFU and provincial managements remain in discussions over the four guiding, and initially “non-negotiable”, principles to deliver at least two experienced players in all 15 field positions (from Leinster, Munster and Ulster) for national selection.
This strategy was announced by IRFU director of rugby Eddie Wigglesworth and chief executive Philip Browne last December. The provincial coaches immediately voiced their opposition to the union edict that foreign players must be “position specific” and that their contracts cannot be renewed from 2013.
Leinster’s two-time Heineken Cup winner Isa Nacewa wants to finish his career in Dublin, but the Fijian international, along with Ulster captain Johann Muller, are currently due to be released under the new plan.
“The way the younger guys talk about Isa and the influence he’s had on their careers that if he wants to stay we’d be stupid not to fight to make that happen,” said Easterby.
The concern about the union insisting foreign players cannot have their contracts extended is that the provinces will only be able to attract short-term, foreign mercenaries in future.
“If you can’t attract that type of person (Nacewa or Muller) you can’t be sure you are attracting the right kind of person. Others might just come for a couple of years, take the money and move on. Certainly, that would be why we would want to extend some of those foreign contracts.
“We all agree that the Irish team is the primary thing we all want to get right. The provinces definitely want that to happen.
“The IRFU are also trying to protect their interests as well. We are having meaningful discussions that will hopefully give us a way forward for the next few years.”
