A story dropped late on Monday night of last week that Glasgow Warriors – and Scotland – were making a move to sign Munster’s young siege gun flyhalf Ben Healy.
Healy was Scottish qualified, the article said, and Gregor Townsend would look to cap him. Not only that, he would get a substantial bounce on the money he’s currently making on his academy deal.
DMs and emails started to arrive immediately.
“Surely it can’t be true?!”
“Bullshit”
Well, it almost certainly is true that Glasgow have made an offer to Ben Healy. It’s also true that if Ben Healy were to sign for Glasgow next summer they would look to cap him almost immediately to ensure his value to the Irish provinces (who he would be naturally attracted to re-sign for should he leave) would plummet as he would be viewed as non-Irish qualified and, as a result, he’d be written out of their charts permanently.
If Wales/Scarlets could have capped Tadhg Beirne in his second year, they would have done it for that reason alone. Once Healy signed and was capped, he would be locked into Scottish rugby where he would fight for a place with Adam Hastings in Glasgow and, if successful there, look to challenge Finn Russell at test level.
Once he was signed into the Scottish system, he would likely find his wage progression at a certain level until he became valuable enough that an English Premiership or TOP14 club would make an offer for him but, at that stage, his value to Scotland would be incrementally larger than it would be to Glasgow.
This is an in-built safety valve to Scottish rugby when it comes to living within their means. It happened to Sean Maitland, it happened to Finn Russell, it happened to Stuart Hogg and just recently it happened to Jonny Gray.
You’d imagine the same will happen to Hamish Watson and perhaps Duhan Van Der Merwe in the medium term because eventually, Scottish rugby expects to lose some of their very best players so that they can keep their wage commitments in a reasonable wage.
While the story mentioned a significant bump in money should he move to Glasgow, the same would be true if he signed a decent senior contract with Munster. Your average academy contract is worth way less than you might think so any increase onto real money from that low point would be considered a nice bump.
It’s certainly possible that Ben Healy could choose to go to Scotland but I think this story is more to do with an agent expressing the worth of his client to his current employers ahead of contract negotiations by highlighting the interest in him from elsewhere.
A worst-case scenario, if you will. Can you imagine Ben Healy kicking winners for Glasgow and Scotland against Munster and Ireland? I can, but I really don’t want to.
This is fairly standard practice and it shouldn’t be held against the player or his agent. Remember the Miami Dolphins? You’d also do well to remember Johnny Sexton and Racing 92 when it comes to contract brinkmanship.
Do I think that, ultimately, Ben Healy will sign a two or three-year deal at Munster? I wouldn’t be surprised. The Glasgow link is absolutely plausible but I think Munster and the IRFU will make it their business to sign up guys like Healy to long term deals.
It makes depth chart and financial sense for both Munster, Ireland and probably Ben Healy too who would continue to be coached by Stephen Larkham and play with the guys who he had such success with at u20 level and, in fairness, since he’s broken into the regular match day squad rotation.
I think Munster are uniquely positioned to push multiple young and academy players to advanced squad roles and dramatically rebalance the squad to a younger focus, while retaining key senior players.
That is not without risk – clubs like experienced players for a reason in that they are mostly known properties – but guys like Casey, Healy, Coombes, the Wycherleys, Ahern and Hodnett (never mind the Y1/Y2 guys) have too much “upside” to be overly conservative.
They are the future and the present. Smart investment now could set Munster up over the coming two or three seasons to rebalance our squad financially and maximise on-field performance.
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