Joey Carbery is going to be selfish for the next 15 months, and so be it.
Carbery was asked to make one of the toughest calls of his career during a season that may never be replicated, in terms of success, and chose to leave it all behind.
At the turn of 2018, we spoke with Carbery for The Hard Yards and asked him if he would consider a switch to Ulster to get some game-time at No.10. Johnny Sexton was blocking his way at club and international level but Ross Byrne – with his 19 starts at outhalf – was proving a considerable foe on the home front.
“I haven’t considered it,” Carbery said.
“If someone from Leinster came up and said it to me, then maybe I would consider it. But the chat has only come from the media so I’m not paying too much attention to it, to be honest.”
Ultimately, Leinster did say it to him but it was only after Joe Schmidt and David Nucifora had visited their UCD headquarters to raise a pressing matter with Leo Cullen and team manager Guy Easterby. This was early April and Ulster were looking at South African outhalf Elton Jantjes as a foreign signing.
Schmidt and Nucifora were not keen on the idea and told Ulster to hold off 48 hours before making a call either way. They visited Leinster to see if they could prise Byrne or Carbery from their home province and up the M1. Leinster were dead set against the idea and neither player, while trying to come across as respectful, fancied it either.
Byrne dug in and it was a wise move on his behalf. As we are already seeing this season, the lad is some talent.
A seed that was planted with Carbery the previous November – after the Fiji game – was nurtured by that visit of Schmidt and Nucifora. He discussed his future with his father and, when Munster sensibly put their hand up, he mulled a move to Thomond Park.
At Munster’s press day at the University of Limerick, on Monday, Carbery told reporters he had spoken with Munster head coach Johann van Graan soon after Leinster beat their old rivals in the Guinness PRO14 semi-final. Speaking openly about his decisions for the move, Carbery told The Irish Examiner:
“It was a tricky enough time… We kinda just chatted. I felt it was the best option for me. Obviously, I wanted to be playing more and kinda get out of the shadow of Johnny [Sexton].
“I’m very happy with the move. I’m loving it down there and I’ve no second guesses or anything, which shows that I made the right move.”
Carbery is two games into his Munster career and has made both of those appearances off the bench. There is a strong possibility that he will wear the No.10 jersey for the first time in Friday night’s game against Ospreys, in Cork.
With Tyler Bleyendaal not cleared to return yet, the 22-year-old’s main competition comes in the form of Ian Keatley and JJ Hanrahan, who started against Cheetahs and Glasgow. Even if Bleyendaal does return, Carbery will not deviate from his goal to tie down that 10 jersey.
“[Focusing on one position] makes my job a bit easier,” he said. “I can focus then on the core skills that I need to work on rather than worrying about two or three other positions that I need to cover.
“Like I said, my favourite position is playing 10. When I’m playing 10, I feel like I am at my best, so that was the main reason.”
What started as an uncomfortable conversation for Schmidt could well bear fruit by the time Ireland land in Japan next autumn for the World Cup.
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