Ian Madigan open to leaving Leinster as he ponders next move

Ian Madigan is not about to settle on a new club just yet, or even ink a new contract with Leinster when his deal is up at the end of the season. The talented utility back is playing the field, looking at what offers his agent Ryan Constable has received.

Madigan is not flinching from the task of securing his future with the right club and the right players that will serve his career in the right way. What was clear yesterday was that it might not be Leinster. Ten years ago players would have been almost honour-bound to stick with the club they grew up dreaming of lining out for. Those days are gone.

Leo Cullen knows it. He went to Leicester with Shane Jennings and Geordan Murphy. Johnny Sexton also knows the realities of professional rugby life and Madigan too understands his own needs.

“At the moment, just going through the process of weighing up my options,” he says. “Still waiting for Leinster and the IRFU to get back, but the way it is now, you have to look at all your options.

“I’m doing that at the moment, waiting for my agent to come back to me on what interest is out there. Then we’ll go from there. I’ll weigh up the pros and cons of staying here, the pros and cons of going elsewhere.

“Also the opportunities to play in the 10 position, or the 12 position and the style of play of Leinster going forward, and the style of play of other clubs that would be of interest.”

Bristol and Harlequins were clubs that recently surfaced as showing an interest and that’s not hurting Madigan’s bargaining power. Lavishly talented, players like him are in short supply whatever the position he plays but gambling on a club that is not playing in the top tier seems too much of a throw of the dice.

“I certainly wouldn’t be looking to play in the Championship. If you did decide to move to a club like Bristol, you’re taking a massive risk in them not getting promoted. That would definitely factor into my decision, if I was considering going there,” he says.

Great success

“Having been in such a fantastic club like Leinster, you’re used to competing and winning competitions. That’s the way I’ve always been. I’d great success even as a kid playing with Kilmacud Crokes. I was lucky that I was on a good schools team in Blackrock. I play sport to win competitions and to win medals.

“The appeal of a club like Harlequins is that they are a club that looks to win The Premiership every year. They’re not just there to make up the numbers or to look back on their season and go ‘oh we made top four this year, that was a successful year’.

“You’ve got an Irish coach there, Conor O’Shea, who plays a very expansive style.”

Madigan is now almost three years on from the last contract he signed with Leinster. But professional sport is such that a 40-year career in a regular job is crushed into 10 or 15 years. Things move fast and bodies rarely stay healthy for the entire time, although he has been fortunate, missing “one or two professional games in my career”.

Money is a factor. He’s 26 and if he is blessed to last as long as Brian O’Driscoll, who retired in 2014 at 35, he has nine years and not all of those his best. He is being smart.

“The finance is always an aspect,” he says.

“If you’re a guy in the academy and you’re earning 300 to 400 quid a month, it’s a big move for you to go on to a development contract and earn 1,500 to 1,600 quid a month. That’s the biggest life-changing time you will go through, going from earning nothing to something.”

Nor has he ruled out moving to another province. With Robbie Henshaw rumoured to be coming to Leinster next season, that would constrict movement in the backline. Henshaw at centre or fullback? No matter, it’s another position nailed down.

“I think you’d be naive to rule it out,” he says of moving province. “It’s the way . . . the IRFU probably want to keep as many players in Ireland as possible. If you are within Ireland, you are giving yourself the best possible chance to be picked for the national team.”

As with O’Driscoll, Sexton, the Kearneys, Rob and Dave, Seán O’Brien and Jamie Heaslip, contact negotiations are fraught and the IRFU can play tough regardless of the player involved. It is also a game of bluff, his going rate rumoured to be £500,000 (€710,000) a year. But if Constable gets the offer where the equation between salary and position balance, it may be a happy Christmas for Cullen.

“Look, the contract stuff . . . from seeing other guys, it can be a short or a long process,” says Madigan. “The process I went through with my last contract wasn’t particularly long. Johnny had left, I was trying to get the starting number 10 shirt and it was a no-brainer to stay.

Right fit

“Times have changed. Johnny’s come back on a long-term deal. If you find the right fit and it all adds up, it can be done quite quickly.

“If you don’t, it can drag on. I’ll be hoping that it won’t be thrashed out through the media and will be done behind closed doors and, please God, it will be done in and around Christmas. . . maybe.”