‘You can’t put a price on value of keeping our top players at home’
IRFU and agents strike important deal to ensure Ireland will have O’Mahony and Furlong available for World Cup tilt in Japan in two years’ time
IT’S the season of giving and the IRFU have certainly dished out the Christmas largesse in festive fashion.
Late Friday afternoon emails are usually notorious for the burial of bad news by duplicitous politicians. In this case, the tidings were only glad.
No need now for fretful Irish rugby fans to keep penning endless missals to the North Pole; IRFU performance director David Nucifora, who will migrate south for the short mid-winter, donned the big red suit himself and tied up two of the biggest rugby deals of recent times with a neat little bow.
The journey was never less than fraught though and, while it might behove us to declare smugly, as in previous instances, that Peter O’Mahony was always going to sign a new deal, or that Tadhg Furlong would elude Europe’s fatter wallets, we cannot say we told you so with anything approaching supreme confidence.
That is because the financial weight enjoyed by the English and French privately-owned clubs, who have no need to balance the books like the IRFU, who must fund the under-age, amateur and women’s games, has flexed its muscles like never before.
STRUGGLE
Ireland could be perceived to be doing mightily well in an ongoing struggle to simply stand still, in financial terms, while continuing to punch above their weight as the sum of their parts combine to retain a top-four ranking in the international game, as well as quite possibly qualifying three teams for the last eight of Europe.
The IRFU’s difficulty, and quite often why the public misunderstand their apparent reluctance to merely cave in at the merest whim of an agent or a player in contract negotiations, is that they must decide what a player is worth.
All the while, from the player’s point of view, in this specific instance O’Mahony and Furlong, their personal battle is to ensure that they are rewarded for what they perceive to be their value.
The distance between these two points – worth and value – remain at the crux of contract talks and are normally the reason why they are prolonged.
There are a variety of other factors – age, position, experience and injury profile are top of the list – but all are intangibles.
The only immediate measure of worth arrives when a potential purchaser comes on the scene; hence, O’Mahony’s worth was pitched at twice that deemed appropriate by those in IRFU HQ who, unlike the agents, have no real grasp on market values because they don’t operate in that world.
Now it’s crunch time!
Both sides try to get closer and it is an inordinately slow process until, as O’Mahony did a fortnight ago, quietly but determinedly makes it clear that he wants the issue sorted by January 1; the race was on.
Conscious that any measure of worth, particularly placed against notional offers from elsewhere, would be clearly unattainable – Simon Zebo’s move alighted upon the IRFU’s unshakeable belief when they simply wouldn’t match his worth, if not his value – both parties needed to get closer in terms of the player’s value.
Munster’s vulnerability in all this is integral; they need to remain competitive and the loss of another marquee player, and the potential knock-on effect within, would have been disastrous, as Conor Murray confirmed again yesterday.
O’Mahony and his advisers would also be aware of the added value that retaining his position as a provincial captain with a captive market – and, potentially a future Irish captain.
The endorsements and match bonuses which will top up his new three-year deal, anything between €400,000 and €450,000, tack on added value despite the perception of diminished worth. It is a fine balancing act. Furlong’s case is different but only because the public hadn’t been alerted to any potential suitors – the reality is that if his name had circulated in Europe, his signature would have been greedily hunted. At any price.
Tighthead props, and especially one of Lions standard, are the supreme earners in the sport and, even though the figures will also have been notional, a similar financial package seems to have satisfactorily bridged the gap between the IRFU and his (two) negotiating agents.
Others will follow. Garry Ringrose’s two-year deal may be the next cab off the rank while CJ Stander, with Munster now freed up to perhaps negotiate their own deal if the IRFU don’t do the heavy lifting, also now more likely to sign.
The mood music up north in Iain Henderson’s case appears to lean towards an agreeable conclusion there, too. Conor Murray fans can breathe easy – for now – as he won’t be up for renewal until after the World Cup cycle when the circus will begin anew.
The IRFU will need to shift some furniture around; despite government commitments, the cost of keeping a variety of balls juggling in the air, as the women’s game has discovered, necessitates cloth cutting.
Currently centrally-contracted players like Andrew Trimble and Tommy Bowe, may soon receive less than delightful mail in the post while the uncertain medical futures of Jamie Heaslip and Jared Payne muddy the waters.
The IRFU have quietly and efficiently been doling out contracts in all four provinces in recent weeks which haven’t grabbed headlines but they do all cost money. The provinces may pay some of the bills but the whole show must be kept on the road by HQ.
Without accurate figures, one can only surmise but it seems as if 40pc of the IRFU playing staff will not make the starting line for the Six Nations, which is a headache in itself.
That is for the future. For now, the IRFU and two keynote players may have agreed to disagree on their worth but all can see the value in securing these signatures.
No value – or indeed worth – can be placed upon the player welfare system that at once manages to retain most of the key players who remain inextricably linked with their home place, while also remaining supremely competitive in sporting terms.
It is a fiendishly difficult balance to maintain – which is exactly why these contract negotiations can often seem extremely arduous to get over the line.
Now all must continue to deliver on the pitch. That’s when the real work begins.
THEDISTANCE BETWEEN WORTH ANDVALUEAREAT THECRUXOF CONTRACTTALKS ANDARETHEREASON WHYTHEYARE PROLONGED