Duncan Casey: Jack Crowley must maximise his worth, but he has unfinished business

Lots of Irish people use it to describe the drink-riddled lead-up to Christmas. When I was at Munster, it was bandied about in reference to the post-Christmas window where contract negotiations that had rumbled on were coming to a head.

It doesn’t happen every year but more often than not, you will have at least one big name in Irish rugby linked with a move abroad. They are offered a deal from their province which they haven’t accepted and there is an impasse between the parties. 

The longer it drags on, the higher the stakes get for everyone concerned. Clubs want to finalise business with their key guys as early in the season as possible and most definitely, before Christmas.

When it gets to February and March and a resolution still isn’t found, coaches, teammates, and supporters alike start to get worried. Jack Crowley is obviously in the headlines right now because he hasn’t penned a new deal. Munster sure as hell don’t want their marquee player sitting on the fence about re- signing with less than three months to go in the season, so the situation is far from ideal.

We called it silly season because there is invariably a mix of kite flying and guys who are legitimately considering a move overseas. The most famous example of the former was Ronan O’Gara apparently being offered $12m to join the Miami Dolphins in 2003. 

According to the man himself, the extent of this was him shaking hands with Dolphins owner Wayne Huzienga after being introduced to him while having lunch at the Old Head of Kinsale.

I remember being captivated by the story as a 12-year-old while it rumbled on, thinking of how exciting it was that a Cork guy was being linked to the NFL. 

His Wikipedia page still states he ‘turned down’ the offer, which shows how firmly rumours can remain embedded, even decades later. When Keith Earls was linked with Saracens in 2016, it was far from a kite-flying exercise. That was a deal that came as close to being done as you can get without ink on the dotted line.

There was a general acceptance around camp that he was going to leave and as sad and shocked as everyone would have been to lose him, there was an appreciation that it would have been a great move for him. 

While his decision to stay led to some journalists lamenting the fact they had been used again, that wasn’t the reality at all. Munster and the IRFU were very fortunate to hold on to him and having gone on to win 101 Irish caps, I’m sure he never regretted his choice.

Not all the stories are as glamorous as these, of course, but they are equally important to the players in question. It’s often down to an agent’s ability to get a story into the media. Much was made of Northampton’s interest in Ian Nagle in early 2011. 

Ian’s stock was riding high in his breakthrough season on a development contract, making several appearances for the first team and getting the man-of-the-match award against a touring Australia side the previous November.

Northampton had been down to watch him in an ‘A’ game against Nottingham and the news caused a bit of a ruckus in camp. Whether or not it resulted in him squeezing more money out of Munster before signing a full contract, I don’t know, but a solid link with a big club elsewhere didn’t do him any harm. 

It was a good example of how the benefits of rumours and speculation don’t just apply to the household names.

Jack Crowley is most definitely a household name and apparently, Leicester have offered him in the region of €700,000 to move to Welford Road. To get down to brass tacks, that is likely double what he can conceivably make in Ireland without a central contract. 

With the best will in the world, Munster have an upper limit to what they can offer even their most sought-after players.

They don’t have access to the same level of private money to top up salaries as their rivals in Dublin 4 and though an iteration of it does exist in the shape of the 1014 group of backers, I have not heard a huge amount about them in recent years. If Jack were a Premier League footballer, an NFL player, or an NBA star, there would be no conversation if such a discrepancy between offers existed. He would be gone in a flash to maximise his income.

Thankfully, rugby has not gone the same way as other sports just yet. Sentiment still plays a role in the game, as does ambition outside of
earning as much as you can. Representing the club you grew up watching means a lot and obviously, lining out in green and playing for your country is something every young player dreams about. Jack finds himself in a bit of an unusual position.

AFTER biding his time for a little while, he burst onto the scene, front and centre of Munster’s remarkable run to win the URC in 2023 and nine months later, started all five games as Ireland won the Six Nations. 

Undeniably, however, his stock with Ireland has fallen in the last six months. The coaches have backed Sam Prendergast as their first choice and while many feel Jack hasn’t been given a fair crack of the whip of late, it is what it is and he is now playing second fiddle at national level.

If he goes, that door is closed for as long as he is away. It’s not closed right now. He must be hugely disappointed with how his Six Nations campaign played out but while Prendergast performed well, he did not do enough to put the contest between the two to bed. Jack has proven himself to be a resilient guy time and again. 

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. You don’t become an international out-half without being ferociously competitive and self-confident.

I have no doubt Jack believes he is a better player and can play his way into the starting XV again. All it takes is a run of games and a stroke of luck and the picture can suddenly look very different. Rugby is a more volatile sport than most and it’s generally a question of when, rather than if, a player will succumb to an injury and face a spell in the stands. 

Just look at Ciarán Frawley, who appeared to be Leinster’s preferred 10 this season. A couple of poorly timed injuries late last year opened the door for Prendergast and now, here we are.

At the same time, as I said when Ben Healy left for Edinburgh two years ago, I am a big believer in striking while the iron is hot and moving when your stock is high. 

The average career of a rugby pro is around six years in Ireland and even if you push that out to eight or 10, it’s still a very short window in which to earn as much as you can and set yourself up for the rest of your life.

 If you command a big price now, there is no guarantee that will be the case in two or four years’ time.

To put it in crudely neoliberal terms, your value is dictated by what the market is willing to pay for you. Is Jack ever going to be in a position where a club is throwing €700,000 at him again? 

For a guy with 24 international caps, that is huge money and it would still be huge money with 50 or 100 appearances under his belt. Rugby is a fickle business and it’s difficult to plan for the future. The opportunity to move away for a couple of years and double your money at another major club becomes very appealing when you look at it through that lens.

I don’t think Jack will leave. There is too much left to play for with Ireland for him to walk away just yet, despite the lucrative opportunity to do so. He has unfinished business he believes he can take care of. 

While Munster’s inconsistency hasn’t helped his cause at national level, looking ahead to a cemented coaching team of Clayton McMillan, Mike Prendergast, and Denis Leamy next year, with Ian Costello co-ordinating things as general manager, will surely make him optimistic about what the future for the province holds.

Whatever happens, we should all appreciate that he is an exceptional home-grown talent who is, by all accounts and above all else, a highly impressive young man in general. 

He has to make the decision that’s right for him and hopefully, it’s one that sees him wearing both red and green this time next year.