THERE IS A DEGREE to which Munster’s out-half picture feels like the repetition of recent history as Graham Rowntree’s side enter the business end of this campaign.

Rewind 12 months: Ben Healy had already announced his departure for Edinburgh. The Tipp man stressed that he would give everything to Munster’s cause before moving to the Scottish capital that summer. Healy described himself as having a “heightened sense of urgency to achieve success” with his native province.

He notably stopped short of trophy talk, which would have felt outlandish — and it would have done so especially at this stage of last season when Munster lost 38-26 at home to Glasgow in the URC before shipping 50 in Durban in their Champions Cup exit to The Sharks.

But the following week in Cape Town, Healy was colossal as he replaced Jack Crowley on 55 minutes and steered Munster to a pivotal regular-season victory over the Stormers — the reigning champions’ first home defeat in 18 months.

Healy continued in a similar vein and signed off with Munster’s first title in 11 years.

So impressive was his form off the bench that Joey Carbery was left carrying water for Munster’s run-in. One wondered if Ireland head coach Andy Farrell had been rash in informing Healy that he most likely didn’t have a test future in Ireland. A lot of Munster fans, meanwhile, wondered how the province had found themselves in a situation in which they were losing a homegrown talent — to one of Ireland’s World Cup pool rivals, no less — and retaining a player in Carbery who looked like a man in far greater need of a fresh start.

The reality was that there was nobody at whom the finger should have been pointed. Carbery, while decidedly out of form, was still very much in contract: Munster couldn’t have cut him loose even if it would have suited both parties. The departing Healy, meanwhile, seemed freed by his own personal Last Dance and took his game to heights that, had they been displayed earlier in the season, might have seen Munster reach further into the wallet to retain him.

As it was, by the time Healy began to push Crowley for the starting job, the sails were already hoisted. Form in rugby is a fickle, fluid thing. Talent is not an exact science. Shit happens.

But watching Joey Carbery whip the ball around to all and sundry in recent weeks, there’s a solid case to be made that it’s happening to Munster again.

Since announcing his departure in January — almost a year to the day after Healy did the same — Carbery looks like a player transformed from the sullen figure who had fallen out of favour with both province and country.

Against the Crusaders at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, at The Stoop against Harlequins, and in back-to-back starts in Wales against the Scarlets and Ospreys, Carbery has at least vaguely resembled the player Munster signed in 2018, attacking the line, expressing himself with ball in hand, and spraying kicks over from all angles like it’s nobody’s business.

While acknowledging the huge caveats that it’s a tiny sample size, and that Leinster’s Byrne brothers have each been excellent in consecutive weeks, would it be absurd to suggest that Carbery has been the second most in-form out-half in the country since February?

In any case, Carbery, still just 28, has begun to roll back the years. He has laid it plain to both Munster and to Irish rugby that they are going to lose a ball-player with significant upside left in the tank.

And again, that’s not to criticise Munster for letting him go. It’s a decision which, first and foremost, makes fiscal sense: Carbery’s salary is disproportionately high for a backup 10 and Munster are acting prudently in reallocating some of that salary to on-field areas of greater concern while signing a cheaper, suitable replacement in Billy Burns.

And the reality is that Carbery, just like Ben Healy last year, appears freed by his decision to start afresh at Bordeaux Bègles next season. He is conspicuously enjoying his rugby which, by his own admission, had firmly stopped being the case last season. And with the spring back in his step, he has the chance to redefine his six-year spell at Munster over the next two months.

He may leave behind him in June a lingering sense of what could have been. Indeed, you could extend that sentiment to Munster’s whole out-half production line in recent times: zoom out and it does strike as a peculiar turn of events that they’ve had to go to the market to sign Burns when, only two years ago, there appeared to be a three-way race between young talents developed within the province — Healy, Crowley and Jake Flannery — to eventually usurp Carbery.

That sound you hear, by the way, is an Ulster fan grabbing the violin and smashing it across their knee.

As things stand, the northern province will head into next season carrying only two senior out-half options: Flannery, who hasn’t quite proven himself able to seize the reins from Billy Burns, and Nathan Doak, who isn’t actually an out-half.

Richie Murphy’s side will get a sense of what that looks like sooner than the new coach would have liked: the Munster-bound Burns underwent a scan in Cape Town earlier this week on a bad-looking shoulder injury suffered during last weekend’s defeat to the Sharks. The results of that scan have yet to be publicised but Doak will start at 10 against the Stormers later today, with Flannery backing him up from the bench.

While Burns will undoubtedly thrive for Munster in a lower-profile, Carbery-like role, he has never universally convinced Ulster fans that he’s the man to steer them to the next level. But last Saturday’s defeat in Durban provided further evidence that Ulster are equally capable of dropping a level without him. It was hardly the sole factor — but when Burns came off against The Sharks, so too did Ulster’s wheels.

Doak has the chance to blow up that narrative later today but against a top-four team with a formidable home record, it’s a steep ask of a 22-year-old who has made three previous starts for the province at out-half — the last of which came away to Connacht in Christmas 2022.

It would seem absurd for Ulster not to recruit another out-half ahead of next season but in all honesty, they currently strike as an organisation capable of doing some very absurd things.

If they enter next season with only Flannery and Doak as their 10s, with Mike Lowry the emergency third option, their recent signing of NIQ wing Werner Kok from the Sharks will take on an altogether more bizarre complexion.

And aside from their precarious financial situation, one of the issues for Ulster in making a pitch to any kind of an established 10 is that he probably won’t be their kicker: scrum-half John Cooney typically bats north of 85% — one of the best success rates in Europe’s top three leagues — and won’t be easily removed from the tee.

Still, head coach Murphy hasn’t yet gotten his feet under the desk in Belfast. He has existing relationships with a succession of Ireland U20 out-halves from recent years, the current jersey holder being his son, Jack. It’s purely speculative, but Murphy may yet have a few tricks up his sleeve for the off-season — albeit he’ll first have to be offered the job on a full-time basis.

He’ll need a couple if he is to firstly salvage this season from what looks like wreckage.