Kearney fears continental exodus

The IRFU faces an increasingly difficult task in persuading top Irish players to stay with their provinces after an amendment to a Government scheme which means they no longer need to finish their careers here to avail of attractive tax breaks.

So says Rob Kearney, the Leinster and Ireland full-back who is also the current chairman of the Irish Rugby Union Players’ Association and someone who has spoken frankly on previous occasions about the lure of life on the continent.

Under the new regulations, Irish sportspeople need only be resident in any EU country or Iceland, Switzerland, Norway or Liechtenstein in order to claim the relief and Kearney admitted it loads the dice considerably in the players’ favour when dealing with the union.

“Yeah, it does, massively. And I imagine it is something that the union aren’t overly delighted with. Finishing your career in Ireland was a big thing that kept a lot of players in the country and from living abroad. That, combined with the fact there are a lot more French clubs out there paying higher wages and looking for some Irish players, heightens that even further.

“There are some interesting times down the road but, at the same time, we have only ever lost one high-profile international player so the union are doing a pretty good job so far on keeping their best players, but there is no doubt about it but that there is going to be an added challenge for them if this new law comes in.”

Kearney knew Jonathan Sexton long before they teamed up at Leinster and has spoken to the Racing Metro out-half since his return to Ireland to link up with Joe Schmidt’s squad. The feedback is that of a man — and wife — well settled in Paris but glad to be home for the next month or so, too.

Sexton has been busy earning his hefty pay cheque in the French capital, togging out 13 times already — compared to Kearney’s six this season with Leinster — and the Leinster back admitted such a workload has raised some eyebrows among his peers back home.

The trade-off is clear: more money awaits on the continent but so too does more rugby and, with that, the greater risk of injury. Kearney stressed that those making the switch need to be durable and, perhaps more importantly, shrewd.

“If you go to some of those bigger clubs — clubs like Toulon, Toulouse, Clermont with massive strength in depth — there is going to be a pretty good rotational policy there too. So you won’t be playing that same amount of games. There is a balance between the two.”

Finding some manner of equilibrium between public expectations and the practical realities of settling in to life under a new national coach will be of even greater importance to Kearney & Co. as they prepare for the visits of Samoa, Australia and New Zealand next month.

Schmidt’s arrival has freshened things up but Ireland have been “poor” this past number of seasons based on the simple arithmetic of the win/losses columns and Kearney is quick to emphasise too that Schmidt’s success at Leinster does not guarantee instant success.

“It’s important that people try and look past his experience with Leinster. He has taken on a new team here, a new competition, new opposition, which is important as well, and he has got a whole new coaching team,” he stressed yesterday at the launch of the new Guinness Plus mobile app.

“I’m sure in his mind he is trying to stress the point it’s not going to happen immediately for him and that it is a work in progress. You look back to his first five or six games with Leinster and we lost I think the first five of them and there were headlines calling for the coach’s head back then.

“Look what happened, so there is a learning curve. That is not to say in any shape or form that the country should be expecting three losses because that’s not what I’m saying. I do think it will take time before we see the best performance from this Irish team. It is not going to happen immediately.”