WHILE HE HAS become synonymous with wearing blue in the fixture, Tadhg Furlong could very easily have found himself donning a jersey of a different colour in Leinster/Munster interprovincial derbies.

A former student of Good Counsel College, New Ross in Wexford – where Gaelic football and hurling tend to be the main sports of choice – Furlong had initially planned to move into third-level education at the University of Limerick (UL).

At the same time, having progressed through the underage ranks of New Ross RFC, Furlong was keen to continue pushing up the rugby ladder and inquired about a possible spot in the Munster Academy.

Aside from the fact he was going to be based within the province, Furlong’s family home in Wexford is quite close to parts of Waterford. This helped to make a potential future with Munster rather enticing, but he subsequently received a call that would bring his career down an alternative path.

“Munster was in my 5K, back in the Covid days. From my home house, Munster is in my 5K across to Waterford. Looking across at Dunmore East, Passage East, Faithlegg.

“When I left school and when I was doing the Leaving Cert, I was going to go to UL to do PE teaching at the time. Or I wanted to do PE teaching. God knows what kind of a teacher I would have turned out to be,” Furlong explained at a Leinster media briefing earlier this week.

“Ken O’Connell coached me for the Irish Youths. He’s a great old fella, Sunday’s Well fella. I remember ringing him, ‘I’m thinking of going down to Limerick and could we ever get into the academy or anything down there or wherever.’ They offered me a sub-academy spot in Munster.

“Then [former Ireland head coach] Gerry Murphy, who would be a great Leinster man, he rang me up and said ‘We see something in you, would you come up. I know you had this going on, but we’ll back you.’ They sorted a few things out for me and off the road up to Dublin I went.”

With 169 senior appearances for Leinster (he had previously been in their system at youth level), 88 Ireland caps and nine test outings for the British & Irish Lions to his name, it has certainly worked out pretty well for Furlong since he made the move up to the capital.

Yet is there a part of him that wonders what could have been if he had travelled down to Limerick?

In training for Leinster. Dan Sheridan / INPHO Dan Sheridan / INPHO / INPHO

“Or what could not have been! A lot of my friends went to college in Limerick and I came up here a little bit on my own. I moved over to Clontarf, played rugby with Clontarf. Fell in with a good crowd there and we had a great time,” Furlong recalled.

“I left school at 17, you see. I was raw back then. Good social scene, that’s what I’d be worried about. I often wonder how life would have turned out. It was more I didn’t know if I’d be any good at rugby really, to be honest with you, or not. Or what way the future held.”

Now just a few weeks shy of turning 34, Furlong remains a vital cog in the Leinster front-row. Before joining up with the Ireland squad for the upcoming Nations Championship Northern Hemisphere Series, he will line out at tighthead prop in the Aviva Stadium tonight when Leinster take on their aforementioned arch rivals Munster in round four of the United Rugby Championship.

When the sides met at the same phase of the URC last season, the eastern province succumbed to a 31-14 defeat at the hands of Clayton McMillan’s side in Croke Park.

While Furlong and a selection of others had featured in the previous week’s victory against the Sharks in the Aviva Stadium, a number of Leinster’s Lions contingent were only making their seasonal bows for 2025/26 in GAA HQ that evening. Fast forward 12 months and Jamison Gibson-Park is the sole player in Leo Cullen’s match day 23 for today who is yet to see action in the current term.

In addition to having substantial match minutes, Furlong believes an extended pre-season has also enabled them to be in a much better place for their latest home meeting with Munster.

“I would have played a game before that going in [last year], but a lot of lads would have played their first game. It’s a tough thing to do and you’re coming up against a team that’s been battle-hardened within that,” Furlong added.

“That being said, I suppose we’ve had a bit of a longer pre-season this year. Most lads are playing their third game now, at least, so you just feel a bit more battle-hardened. You’re not walking into it as cold, along with that pre-season we’ve done.”