Henshaw move to Leinster looks remote

Any lingering prospect of Robbie Henshaw moving from Connacht to Leinster has dwindled even further with the latter’s team manager Guy Easterby highlighting the importance of provincial loyalties to the professional game.

Rumours that Henshaw would make the switch eastwards had grown in recent weeks and increased further when IRFU president Pat Fitzgerald said last week that the player would have to move if told to by national coach Joe Schmidt.

News that Connacht had signed centre Bundee Aki from New Zealand ratcheted matters up even further, but coach Pat Lam subsequently confirmed he was a direct replacement for the departing Eoin Griffin and retiring Kyle Tonetti.

Connacht released a statement to that effect over the weekend, insisting Henshaw — their centrally contracted Irish international centre — would be playing his home rugby at the Sportsground until the summer of 2016 at least.

The volume of players moving between the provinces has picked up in recent years, with most of the movement spanning the motorway between Galway and Dublin, but it has been ad hoc rather than systematic.

Yet it has been suggested that there may be more cross-pollinating among the four branches with the imminent arrival of former Wallaby hooker David Nucifora, the IRFU’s new performance director.

Easterby, for one, sees issues there were that the case.

“I’ve only read what [the media] have suggested. We would have to sit down with the guy who comes in and have a long and interesting chat. The talk about moving people… we’ve used 50 players this year. If you move people about and there’s meritocracy involved I just don’t think it’s going to work.

“The culture of Irish rugby is people are very within their own province and that’s a real positive. If you ask Matt O’Connor, he thinks that’s one of the biggest positive of Irish rugby, that allegiance to your own province. Not many people will make the move between provinces.”

Players in New Zealand have long been directed towards different franchises by the union there on the basis of what may be best for the All Blacks but that would obviously have implications for the provinces.

Easterby admitted that it would be “very difficult to take” if Leinster were ordered to part with certain players to neighbouring parishes although the priority this week is Friday’s visit of Treviso to the RDS in the RaboDirect PRO12.