Veteran McGrath keen to extend Leinster stay as long as possible

Aged 32 now, it's over five years since Luke McGrath last played for Ireland and Jamison Gibson-Park is Leinster’s starter at scrum-half when push comes to shove.

Leinster's Luke McGrath in action. Pic: Ben Brady/Inpho

Luke McGrath is at an age now where the end of his career is much closer to the beginning. 

Aged 32 now, it's over five years since he last played for Ireland and Jamison Gibson-Park is Leinster’s starter at scrum-half when push comes to shove.

Put all that together and there is the beginnings of a case to be made for a new chapter. To look for pastures new, as others have done, Ross Byrne is off to Gloucester this summer. Lee Barron and Michael Milne will make the switch to Munster.

That’s one way of looking at it, but McGrath had no intention of uprooting and it was duly announced late last week that he had just signed on the dotted line to extend his long association with his native province.

“I didn't really look this year,” he has explained. “I wanted to be in Leinster for next year, which thankfully I did. I really don't know what's going to happen in the future but this year, all I wanted to do was sign on for Leinster.” 

It’s easy to see why.

McGrath has already played 13 times this term, eight of those appearances coming as a starter. He is playing for a team aiming for silverware on two fronts and he is doing that with people he knows and many of whom are good friends.

“I’ve been at this club a long, long time. I want to be here as long as I can so it’s great to get that deal done. I’m hugely excited about the run-in to the end of the season at Leinster. We’ve so many big games to come and obviously there is next year as well.” 

The importance of a player like McGrath is multiplied at this time of the season when Leinster are still operating without their cohort of Ireland Test players who are being given time to recuperate from the exertions of another Six Nations campaign.

He is the oldest player with what is a young squad in South Africa right now as they prepare to face the Bulls in Pretoria this Saturday and then the Sharks in Durban seven days later. They do that with a 13-point lead at the head of the URC standings, which helps.

“We haven’t really spoken too much about the table. We just spoke about the challenge ahead of us. Our record here hasn’t been great in the last couple of years in South Africa, but we have a different team here.

“We know there’s a huge challenge ahead of us, a great place to play, a massive challenge ahead of us. Everyone knows that. We tried to flip it on its head when we spoke about it this morning.

“We talked about how it is an amazing opportunity to play in a place like Loftus against a world-class team like the Bulls. We have a younger squad and it is a great challenge but one we are relishing.”