‘We wanted Tadhg Furlong on a longer deal’ – IRFU

Colin Newboult

Ireland player Tadhg Furlong during the match Italy-Ireland in the Olympic stadium. Rome (Italy), February 27th, 2021 (Photo by Massimo Insabato/Mondadori Portfolio/Sipa USA)

IRFU performance director David Nucifora has said that they offered Tadhg Furlong a longer term contract but that was rejected by the tighthead prop.

The Leinster man gave Irish rugby a significant boost by re-signing until the end of the 2021/22 season, but he could still leave prior to the start of the next World Cup.

Nucifora is optimistic that Furlong will remain in Ireland until 2023 at the very least but is adamant that they must not be reliant on one player.

Tadhg Furlong’s prerogative

“We’d have loved to have contracted Tadhg for longer than one year, but that was his choice to sit back and say ‘well, maybe the landscape will have changed in 12 months and it will be different’ And that’s his prerogative to do that,” he told reporters.

“We’re happy that he’s staying on, and hopefully when we get back to the negotiating table with he and other players we’ll be able to convince him that staying on is the best thing for their rugby. But that’s a choice that they’ll have to make.

“All we can do is operate within the financial boundaries and capacity that we have, and I suppose what we’ve always tried to do in the last five or six years is to make sure that we have continued to develop players so that we’re hopefully not over dependent on any one particular player, as much as they are all important to us.

“When you go back a few years when Mike Ross was our starting tighthead, who would have thought we’d have two tightheads going away on a Lions tour? So player development is unbelievably important to us and underpins a lot of what we do.

“We’re hopeful. I know the players appreciate what Irish rugby does for them but at the end of the day it’s an individual decision they all have to make as to whether they want to stay.”

Like all sports, rugby has suffered financially due to the coronavirus pandemic but they are set to be boosted by the return of crowds for the July Tests before potentially getting up to capacity in November.

“It’s obvious we need crowds back and before I say anything else it would be wrong for me not to thank Sport Ireland and the Government who have been brilliant in supporting the IRFU and sport,” Nucifora added.

“We will have crowds back in during these July matches, we just have to work out how many, and then hopefully close to full houses by the time the November internationals roll around.

“The provinces desperately need crowds, they are their lifeblood, and the sooner we can fill stadium with people it will go a long way to filling the hole. We lost €35 million last year, and will lose €30million this year.

“That is an unbelievably significant amount of money, and the return of crowds will help but this is long term. It will take years for us to claw back, but we hope we’ve streamlined ourselves to be ready.”