It feels like we’ve been waiting for Joey Carbery since the 2019 Six Nations. When Carbery was signed in the summer of 2018, it was a genuine sensation. I genuinely believe that it was the biggest direct interprovincial transfer of all time – not the most successful, which is a different criterion, where I would show you the names of Sean Cronin, Andrew Conway, Robbie Henshaw and Isaac Boss – and it lit social media on fire that summer, right around the time when Joey Carbery’s hype levels were at their zenith. I know that’s two €10 words in that sentence but I promise I haven’t been infected by Sublime Bloviation Syndrome just yet – that’s just what Grammarly suggested to me and I always do what the underline tells me.
But I digress.
To that point, Joey had come to national attention after a sensational performance for Clontarf in the 2016 AIL Division 1A final against Cork Constitution. I watched that game against Cork Con and he was just… unreal. He looked a level above the other players on the pitch at the time. Carbery scored 13 points that day (leaving another nine behind him off the tee from missed penalties) and had a direct hand in two other tries. He looked like a guy who wouldn’t be playing much AIL after that final so it was fitting, in a way, that he won the title with Clontarf that day. Later that summer, Graham Henry told Leo Cullen during his short consultancy at Leinster that they didn’t need to worry about replacing Sexton because…
… Joey Carbery can do that job for the next 10 years, he told us.
The following season, Carbery exploded onto the scene with Leinster, got his first cap against the All Blacks in Chicago and established himself as a premier playmaking talent at #10 and then at fullback outside Sexton during some of Rob Kearney’s injury spells. The season later, Carbery won a Grandslam and Heineken Cup but, crucially, found his Big Game minutes limited with Rob Kearney returning to full fitness. In Leinster and Ireland’s bumper 2017/18, Carbery found himself with 15 or 22 on his back when there were test games or trophies to be won. That was a problem. He wanted the #10.
In early 2018 with the 2019 World Cup looming, there were concerns over Johnny Sexton’s age at that point. I mean, just how long could a guy who’d be 34 years old during that year’s Summer Tour to Australia continue to be productive at the highest level? Sexton didn’t show any signs of deterioration, so it appeared that there was a fairly significant roadblock to Carbery getting the Big Game minutes he’d need to become what he looked like he could be. The IRFU knew this and so did Carbery. Ulster was the move initially pitched to him by all accounts but a big sell by Johann Van Graan in Barack Obama Plaza with Felix Jones swung him south.
We needed a #10 to kick Van Graan’s project up a gear in the wake of what would be a career-ending neck issue for Tyler Bleyendaal, guys like Keatley and Hanrahan topping out at a sub-elite level and young prospects like Bill Johnston not working out due, in part, to a series of injuries.
It was the perfect blend of want and necessity. Van Graan needed a #10, the IRFU wanted the highest potential and most viable Sexton replacement at that time playing big game minutes at #10 and Carbery himself wanted to be The Guy at #10. He backed himself to do it elsewhere instead of waiting for Sexton to pass a torch that he’d still have in his back pocket six seasons later.
Getting Joey Carbery on contract was, genuinely, one of Johann Van Graan’s biggest achievements as Munster coach. He was rewarded instantly with an outstanding debut season where Carbery averaged just over 10 points a game across 900+ minutes, which is prime Beaudan Barrett-level scoring for a flyhalf. The last time Sexton averaged over 10 points a game for Leinster on anything like those kinds of minutes was the season they last won the European Cup in 2017/18 so, for Carbery to rack that up in his first season as a starting #10, was significant.
If you told me then in the aftermath of that game against Gloucester that, in five years’ time, Carbery would be left out for a season-defining game that he was fully fit for, I wouldn’t have believed you.
Yet, here we are.
Of course, we can’t pretend like the litany of injuries that Carbery has suffered since that 2018/19 season hasn’t taken something from him. Of course they have. We also can’t pretend like Joey Carbery hasn’t played well at all since he’s come back from injury. Last season, for example, Carbery went on an excellent run of scoring off the tee against Exeter and Ulster but there always seemed to be something missing from the rest of his game. In 2021/22 he scored an average of 9.8 points per game on 796 minutes. It’s just a few points per game off his superb debut season but the scoring alone doesn’t tell the whole story.
When the heat came on at the end of a big, win-now season for Munster and Van Graan, Joey Carbery’s performances fell away after a good performance away to Ulster. His Cardiff, Toulouse, Leinster and Ulster run just wasn’t what you’d expect from an elite level #10.
He still toured with Ireland in New Zealand (and played 50 minutes of the losing first test) but he was a garbage-time cover guy for Sexton in the next two tests where Farrell made it clear that, if we had a chance of winning those games and the series, Carbery would barely do double digits.
He was back where he was pre-2018/19, except this time it was worse.
He started this season incredibly poorly which is understandable, given he and a bunch of other internationals were brought back in cold to starting positions with very little time under their belt in Munster’s new system. Thanks Emerging Ireland. Munster lost three of the five games Carbery was involved in at the start of the season and he went scoreless until his fourth game of the season against the Bulls. When he picked up an injury against Fiji, that opened the door up for Jack Crowley and then Ross Byrne to have big games against Australia while Joey recovered.
Internationally at least, he has yet to recover from that.
I wrote ahead of the season that Joey Carbery should, in theory, be perfectly suited to the system Prendergast is implementing and while Munster’s 3-3-X system is almost exactly as I envisioned it, Carbery’s role in that system is not. That isn’t to say that he hasn’t had decent outings – the home performance against Toulouse in the fog was decent – but I expected Carbery and Prendergast’s system to be a positive feedback loop that would make both better.
It hasn’t really transpired that way. Carbery’s Champions Cup pool was mostly underwhelming, as were his winter Interpro performances. When he was left out of the Irish Six Nations squad it wasn’t too much of a shock to anyone but I think what did shock people was Carbery’s reaction – onfield, there wasn’t really one at all that you could sink your teeth into. He did OK. He made his kicks, he had a few moments in all of the games since he was dropped from the Irish squad but nothing that makes you think “Farrell fucked up leaving this guy out”.
When Carbery was left out of the squad to play the Stormers last week, a bit like the Ireland selection, I wasn’t shocked. He had been a non-factor in the Sharks game, where he rotated to the bench after a milquetoast performance at #10 in a must-win game against Glasgow two weeks before.
At this stage, barring a miracle playoff run to the end of the season that sees Carbery win the URC for Munster as the starting #10, it’s hard to see Carbery going to the World Cup as it stands unless Sexton can’t recover from his season-ending injury in time (which I doubt – that lad would play in crutches if he was allowed).
One of the things I’d heard from around the Ireland camp about Carbery is that when the pressure goes up since he’s returned from injury, he isn’t just cool and collected – he’s passive onfield. You don’t have to rant and rave to be an elite #10 but if you’re a cooler, more composed character you’re actions have to speak louder than words. Think about Beauden Barrett. Far from a Sexton-like gurner but when the heat comes on, you know he’s got a moment in him that breaks a game open and plunges a dagger into the opposition’s heart when it counts.
When you think about Joey Carbery, is that what you see? Not lately.
It seems that Crowley, for the time being, has moved ahead of him as befits (a) his performances this season, (b) his system suitability even when he’s playing at #12 and (c) his work at Ireland level in Carbery’s stead. For Carbery now, the equation is simple heading into a contract year; he’s fighting for his career as an elite #10 in the Irish environment. Joey will be 28 this November and should be entering his peak. The guy who he always looked like being is still in there somewhere, I believe that, but he needs to show himself consistently now when the pressure goes up and up. Ultimately, in pressure games, you want to look back at your #10 when the heat is on and think “he’s got this”.
Does Joey? The next few months will tell a lot.
