Peter O'Mahony admits contract negotiations got 'messy'
Peter O'Mahony during Munster squad training at the University of Limerick. Picture: ©INPHO/Ben Brady
Peter O’Mahony will not go quietly into the night when the moment comes to call time on his professional rugby career and the Munster and Ireland talisman believes he still enough in the tank to keep roaring for one more season.
O’Mahony was speaking on Tuesday as preparations continued for Munster’s home URC semi-final with Glasgow Warriors this Saturday evening at Thomond Park.
It was the first time he had spoken to the media since the night he lifted the Guinness Six Nations trophy as Ireland captain on March 16 and also since putting pen to paper on a one-year deal with his province the following month, a deal that will take him to the end of the 2024-25 season with Munster.
The 34-year-old back-rower said it will be his last contract as a professional player and explained how “messy” negotiations over his final deal could have been concluded more quickly. Yet now they have been settled to his satisfaction, the former Munster captain is delighted to be playing on into a 16th season rather than rushing into a decision to retire at the end of the current campaign which he may have regretted.
“It could have been done a lot quicker, yeah. It was messy,” O’Mahony said. “Look it, if it was done 12 weeks earlier it would have been a lot easier for everyone. But it wasn’t and it panned out the way it did. That’s business as well. That’s the way things go. That’s part and parcel of the job.
“Not to sound arrogant but I don’t need to state my case around here. I’ve played for this club for a long time now and I’ve never gone into contract negotiations saying I don’t want to stay. That’s the first thing I’d say, up front, ‘I want to stay’, ‘I want you to look after me fairly’.
“It was the same this time around it just took a bit longer and look, it got sorted and that’s the way it went.”
Thirteen months from lifting the URC trophy alongside the now retired Keith Earls in Cape Town following Munster’s Grand Final victory over the Stormers, O’Mahony is back in the thick of things at the business end of a season. That trophy lift was one of his last acts as club captain after a decade in the role but with back-to-back titles within reach, another play-off campaign is exactly why he wanted to carry on.
“Of course it is, yeah. These are the weekends that you work on the torturous ones during the winter (for). We navigated our way through a difficult period. I think Prendy (attack coach Mike Prendergast) said to me we were 11th (in the table) around the start of November.
“If you’d have sat me down and said we were going to top the league come end of May, June, it would have hard to see that from there but kind of like last season, that will stand to us over the weekend and hopefully next week.”
Reaching the decision to play on had taken some consideration, he admitted. He was on the fence in the immediate, emotional aftermath of Ireland’s World Cup quarter-final exit at the hands of New Zealand last October, and still undecided about his future in the game at the end of a successful Six Nations campaign, having been named national captain ahead of the championship.
“I had the decision to make after the World Cup, whether I wanted to play on or not and I took a few weeks and there was arguments to finish up, from me particularly, but I think it would have been a rushed call.
“I’m delighted with the decision I made. I think I would have sat there next year, you know, would my body still have been able to go, and regretted it. I didn’t want to have any regrets, that was the biggest thing. I didn’t want any regret on anything and I think I would have sat there next year thinking ‘I could have gone again’.
“I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to be fingernails in the door stuff. This is my last contract playing professional rugby anywhere, well, not anywhere but this is my last one and it means I can really enjoy it now. I can plan and have last games, you know, last games at Christmas, and at Thomond Park.
“I certainly have no interest in one of these long goodbyes but I can tick things off in my head as I go on next season. But hopefully there’s 10, 12 days left in this one yet.”
And possibly another two Tests with Ireland at least. The Irish skipper insisted his place on the squad for the summer series in South Africa against the Springboks was not assured.
With the touring party being named next Wednesday, it will not be for the want of trying on O’Mahony’s part this Saturday. The story is not over yet.
“No no. Well, I hope I'm playing well enough to get picked. Absolutely.”
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