Caolán Scully

Dan Sheehan, famously, his central contract was announced the same day Geordie Barrett signed for Leinster.

So there was kind of a sense in other provinces, and like Peter O'Mahony, Conor Murray, Ian Henderson, Jacob Stockdale came off theirs.

So there was a sense in other provinces of, are we the ones paying up for this?

It was part of the reason why the central contracting model was changed or so we're led to believe that it was gone a bit too imbalanced.

Leinster with 11, which was more than the other three provinces combined.

So I think if you trace it back that far and Leinster eventually feeling the squeeze and having to pay for all these guys and more than everything else, contracts come in cycles.

There's going to be one season more than others where you have to pay a little bit more for everyone.

And I think this was their one.

I think James Lowe, I would imagine they probably lowballed him with an offer.

hoped they'd meet halfway never came to pass but ultimately James Lowe is you know what 33 years of age he's a winger who never had the most amount of pace even though he's one of the best attackers in one-on-one space just from from close range because he's so powerful he's got an unbelievable upper body power to him it looks like they just couldn't get a deal done and now he's off to Japan and bearing in a massive statement of intent or

You know, whatever word you want to use.

He won't be playing at the World Cup in Australia.

He'll be off in Japan.

There's reports that he's going to move back to Ireland afterwards anyways.

So it's a sour end on the field, that's for sure.

And he'll be hoping that he can finish with the second URC medal for Leinster tomorrow week as we record.

So yeah, it'll be very interesting to see how it goes.

Because it's not an ending you like to see, don't get me wrong.

Like, I don't want to see James Lowe just kind of feeling like he's squeezed out.

But I suppose Irish should be, and at this point it's been made elsewhere, we've gotten very spoilt in players not leaving.