Interesting…

So the saga is finally over. Joey Carbery will swap the blue of Leinster for the red of Munster next season after agreeing what is believed to be a two-year deal with the southern province.

But what happened to Carbery going to Ulster? Is this not why Joe Schmidt and David Nucifora originally sat down with him? A perfect opportunity to kill two birds with the one stone?

Carbery gets his game time at ten and Ulster get a replacement for Paddy Jackson after he had his IRFU contract revoked. It was the perfect scenario. Or so we thought…

But did Carbery turn down Ulster? Apparently not. It seems Ulster turned him down and let Munster swoop in. According to Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt, Ulster were looking elsewhere when he and David Nucifora originally spoke to Carbery about a potential move in search of more playing time at ten.

“The initial conversation with Leo, myself and David Nucifora wasn’t best timing for any of us – not where I wanted to be – but I had a job to do and all we asked was whether there was any interest.”

“Ulster at the time were looking for a foreign option. They needed to know before midday the following day and so we had to see if there was any chance at all if any of our local number 10’s were interested.

“If there was no interest then it was probably a different story. There was a bit of interest from Joey at the time. He mulled that over and I think he got an approach from Munster in the interim and it digressed then into a different conversation.”

That foreign option of course was likely Springbok Elton Jantjes, who the IRFU reportedly ended up blocking Ulster from signing as they wanted the northern province to bring in an Irish ten.

So it could be a case where the IRFU spoke to Carbery about a move to Ulster, but the northern province had already set about signing Jantjes, only to have the move rebuffed, allowing Carbery to explore Munster in the process? Interesting indeed.