The Australia captain, a position that Munster are in need of and, as an added bonus, he's as Irish as an Australian can possibly get. So when news filtered through that Stephen Moore could have moved to Munster had it not been for the IRFU's decision to block the move, it's easy to see why the Thomond faithful were less than happy.
However, it seems that may not be the entirety of the story if IRFU performance director David Nucifora is to be believed. The former Australia international sat down for a rare media briefing at the Aviva Stadium last night to discuss the current challenges facing Irish Rugby.
Central to that has been finding the balance between promoting Irish youth talent and attracting the best talent from around the world. In that context, Moore's decision to remain in Australia and return to the Queensland Reds, has been one of particular contention.
And although the suggestion had been that the IRFU blocked the move, Nucifora had a different explanation.
Munster came to us with Stephen and said 'this is what we'd like to put forward'. There's a whole range of things that we think about that go into these decisions.
So, having a player that's still eligible to play international rugby that's going to cost a province a lot of money, is that the best use of the funds available, where he's going to be missing for a large portion of the season? Probably not.
That would seem to suggest that the IRFU were not willing to go above and beyond their budget to allow Munster to sign Moore. Despite that, Nucifora confirmed that an offer had been made to Australia captain. The problem was that he simply chose not to accept it.
It'd be nice to have him but it'd be nice to have him for the whole year. It wasn't blocked. There probably was an offer made to Moore. It just wasn't accepted.
What that would fairly pointedly suggest is that the money that the IRFU were wiling to release to Munster simply wasn't sufficient to entice Moore to make the move.
You can listen to some more of Nucifora's thoughts below, including his take on what Ireland have to do keep our best talent with the Irish provinces.
