Yesterday, Leinster coach Richie Murphy hinted that a couple of signings were on the way sooner rather than later. One of those signings was rumoured to be Connacht's Mick Kearney and it has today been confirmed that Kearney would indeed be linking up with the province at the beginning of next season.
The announcement was made alongside the Leinster contract renewals for last season with head coach Matt O'Connor explaining what the back row would bring to his side.
We are delighted to secure the services of Mick Kearney. Leo Cullen and Marco Caputo have been very impressed with his progress and he has done well over the last number of seasons with Connacht and we think that he will contribute hugely to the set up here.
He is also a young guy having just turned 24 so we very much see him developing as a player and I think he will benefit hugely from working directly with players of the experience of Devin Toner and Mike McCarthy.
Elsewhere in the squad there is room for one Jonathan Sexton, although we already knew that. While the two other new names are Royce Burke-Flynn and Ian Hirst.
In terms of omissions, the big news is that Gordon D'Arcy is absent from the contract renewal list. There's still time for the centre to sign another deal with the IRFU but his absence from this initial list is certainly notable.
No sign of Gordon D'Arcy on the list of resigned players, said this week he's not decided on his future. Boss & Reddan go again.
— Rúaidhrí O'Connor (@RuaidhriOC) April 9, 2015
Another key thing to take out of today's announcement is that Zane Kirchner has been retained for next season. That would mean that were Isa Nacewa to return as expected, there will be no more room in the overseas quota for a high profile addition that many fans may have been hoping for.
Renewals (* denotes full international):
Isaac Boss*
Bryan Byrne
Ed Byrne
Jack Conan
Sean Cronin*
Tom Denton
Darragh Fanning
Luke Fitzgerald*
Rob Kearney*
Zane Kirchner*
Dan Leavy
Cathal Marsh
Fergus McFadden*
Luke McGrath
Mick McGrath
Kevin McLaughlin*
Martin Moore*
Jordi Murphy*
Colm O'Shea
Eoin Reddan*
Noel Reid*
Mike Ross*
Dominic Ryan*
Richardt Strauss*
Devin Toner*
James Tracy
Josh Van Der Flier
New Signings:
Royce Burke-Flynn
Ian Hirst
Mick Kearney
Jonathan Sexton*
