{"id":276317,"date":"2026-01-09T18:09:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:09:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/276317\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T18:09:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T18:09:10","slug":"leo-cullen-confirms-leinster-in-talks-for-joey-carbery-return-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/276317\/","title":{"rendered":"Leo Cullen confirms Leinster in talks for Joey Carbery return \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

In confirming that Leinster<\/a> are in negotiations to bring Joey Carbery<\/a> home next season, Leo Cullen<\/a> has reiterated his frustration and annoyance at the manner in which he believes their former outhalf was persuaded to join Munster<\/a> in 2018. <\/p>\n

Cullen evidently believes that pressure was brought to bear on Carbery to leave his native province and join rivals Munster. The Leinster head coach declined to name those in question. <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, we\u2019ve had some conversations with Joey. That\u2019ll play out over the next little while,\u201d Cullen confirmed, as Leinster move quickly to fill the impending void left by Ciar\u00e1n Frawley\u2019s move to Connacht next summer<\/a> by acquiring the 30-year-old Carbery, who is in the second of a two-year deal at European champions Bordeaux-B\u00e8gles after six seasons at Munster.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rory Best on how Ulster have turned things around<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, he\u2019s a Leinster person first and foremost, came through the pathways. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a great secret I wasn\u2019t a big fan of how that played out at the time and I wouldn\u2019t have blamed Joey in any sense. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut some of the people who were involved there, I don\u2019t think covered themselves in glory, did they?\u201d said Cullen with a broad smile, before adding: \u201cBut you\u2019ll have to do a bit of digging there yourselves to find out what I mean by that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cIt was a long time ago. It\u2019s in the past. Listen, we move forward. A lot of things have happened since then, but if you think of Joey\u2019s last season with us, Leinster won the double, so he was obviously doing something all right that season anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe experience he has comes into play. We\u2019ll see how it plays out, nothing to be confirmed yet anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Carbery\u2019s return to the Irish fold is welcome, not least for Leinster, it is a little surprising that he has opted for his home province given he will be competing against Sam Prendergast<\/a> and, presuming he signs a new contract, Harry Byrne. <\/p>\n

\"HarryHarry Byrne, Ciar\u00e1n Frawley and Sam Prendergast with Ireland defence coach Simon Easterby during an Ireland training camp in January 2024. Photograph: Dan Sheridan\/Inpho <\/p>\n

Will Carbery be considered another out-and-out 10, or a like-for-like replacement for Frawley?<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Ciar\u00e1n going to Connacht, everyone is asking that same question,\u201d said Cullen. \u201cSo when you\u2019re in a squad sometimes, you need to have that flexibility and do what\u2019s right for the team. Ciar\u00e1n is playing 15 for us this weekend and making the trip west next season. But the here and now is what interests me in terms of that conversation, it is all speculation.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Byrne, whose brother Ross moved to Gloucester last year and who had a successful loan spell with Bristol last season, Cullen said the matter is \u201cto be confirmed\u201d. \u201cWe\u2019re in a speculation period and you\u2019re trying to catch me up now,\u201d he laughed. \u201cHopefully Harry will be here next year. I\u2019m getting tripped up everywhere, landmines all over the place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cullen also confirmed Andrew Porter sustained \u201ca niggle in training with his calf\u201d on Thursday, so will join Rabah Slimani (calf) and Tadhg Furlong (hand) on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

Paddy McCarthy will start in the front row, with Jerry Cahir and Andrew Sparrow set to make their Champions Cup debuts off the bench, while Joshua Kenny gets his debut from the off as James Lowe is out with a neck injury.<\/p>\n

LEINSTER (v La Rochelle): <\/b>Ciar\u00e1n Frawley; Tommy O\u2019Brien, Rieko Ioane, Robbie Henshaw, Joshua Kenny; Sam Prendergast, Jamison Gibson-Park; Paddy McCarthy, Dan Sheehan, Thomas Clarkson, Joe McCarthy, James Ryan, Jack Conan, Josh van der Flier, Caelan Doris (capt).<\/p>\n

Replacements: <\/b>R\u00f3nan Kelleher, Jerry Cahir, Andrew Sparrow, Diarmuid Mangan, Max Deegan, Luke McGrath, Harry Byrne, Andrew Osborne.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In confirming that Leinster are in negotiations to bring Joey Carbery home next season, Leo Cullen has reiterated…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,139797,11,12,12861,53475,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-276317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-joey-carbery","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-leinster-rugby","20":"tag-leo-cullen","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115866485569102412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}