{"id":634263,"date":"2026-06-12T04:40:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634263\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T04:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T04:40:14","slug":"bernard-jackmans-ominous-warning-to-leinster-after-james-lowes-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/634263\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard Jackman’s ominous warning to Leinster after James Lowe’s exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Bernard Jackman has warned Leinster that big-name players could leave the club if James Lowe\u2019s contract situation was handled poorly.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, Leinster<\/a> announced the departure of their all-time top try-scorer, with his contract expiring at the end of the season. The possibility of Lowe<\/a> leaving the Dubliners arose last month, news that stunned many fans and pundits considering his importance to Leinster and Ireland in recent seasons.<\/p>\n

The British and Irish Lions winger has since been linked with a move to Japan Rugby League One side Tokyo Sungoliath, filling Cheslin Kolbe\u2019s void at the club with the Springboks star returning to the Stormers.<\/p>\n

Change in the way the IRFU contribute to player salaries<\/p>\n

According to former Ireland<\/a> and Leinster hooker Jackman, the offer for him to move to Japan wasn\u2019t even on the table when Lowe\u2019s contract situation played out.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the RTE Rugby Podcast<\/a>, he explained how the IRFU\u2019s central contracting system is going through changes which will stretch Leinster\u2019s finances as they cover a high percentage of the Ireland internationals\u2019 salaries going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a couple of things at play here because the central contracting model has changed in that it used to be 100% from the IRFU,\u201d Jackman<\/a> explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo Leinster, with so many central contracts, had free players to a certain extent. Obviously there were limitations around when they could play, but that was a huge boost to Leinster because then their own revenue went into trying to keep the next crop of future internationals or to the foreign players.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen they looked at that, and then they decided 30% will be paid by the province. So obviously that\u2019s a big chunk for Leinster to pay because there are so many [Ireland internationals], and next year or quite soon it goes to 40%, which is my understanding. So that\u2019s another 10% on top of your Caelan Doris, James Ryan, etc and Leinster have double digits of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the case of Lowe, the winger has never been on a full IRFU central contract. Instead, he has been part of the Player of National Interest scheme [PONI] where the province contracts the player, and the IRFU makes contributions.<\/p>\n

James Lowe\u2019s emotional first words as Leinster exit confirmed: \u2018Man, where do I begin?\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

How James Lowe\u2019s deal fell apart<\/p>\n

According to Jackman, this is where a possible extension for the outside back fell apart, as the IRFU was no longer going to top up his deal and was relying on Leinster to keep Lowe in Ireland. Ultimately, that is a tough sell for Leinster considering Lowe\u2019s injury profile \u2013 he has played just nine times for the side this season \u2013 and the fact that he would still be unavailable due to international commitments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s obviously quite a bit of money that Leinster now have to fund themselves. Outside of the central contracts and PONIs\u2026 Simon Zebo\u2019s return from Racing 92 had some kind of additional top-up from the IRFU to get that deal done. It has been a way to get a bit creative to get deals done, but I don\u2019t know who is to blame here,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cJames is the kind of fella who will tell it as it is when he\u2019s leaving, which will be interesting to get his take on it but something has happened that has gone pear-shaped where he didn\u2019t feel respected, or he felt let down by how it played out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rumour is that there\u2019s no PONI anymore, so that bridge as such was gone, and obviously that drastically reduced the number that he would earn. That dragged on and on. If he\u2019s going to Japan, which certainly seems to be the strong rumour at the moment, I think Toulon were in for him; look, there will be lots of clubs in for him, but I think Toulon was likely destination and it seems Cheslin Kolbe going back to Stormers has opened up a contract in Tokyo, which he now will take. It will obviously be very lucrative.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis deal was gone before that Japanese offer came in. It was just there was a massive difference in opinion around values, etc.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luke Fitzgerald hits out at \u2018short-sighted\u2019 IRFU over \u2018very unusual\u2019 James Lowe contract stand-off<\/a><\/p>\n

Jackman warns Leinster, more could leave<\/p>\n

While Jackman was sympathetic to Leinster\u2019s situation, he did highlight that they are moving several high-profile players off their payroll and should be increasing their revenues when they return to the RDS Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeinster will obviously not take any blame on this because they\u2019ll feel that they did right. It\u2019s very hard to justify bringing Rieko Ioane or Jordie Barrett in and not be able to keep James Lowe, regardless of the PONI contribution or not. That\u2019ll be the challenge for Leinster,\u201d he continued before issuing his warning to the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, they had to make a decision, and they\u2019re working on their constrained budget and probably at the time when their need to pay central contracts goes up 10%. Their crowds are down 30%. Leinster\u2019s financial picture for next year certainly wouldn\u2019t be as positive.<\/p>\n

Want more from Planet Rugby? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list<\/a> for world-class coverage you can trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re going back to the RDS, and that\u2019s great, and hopefully that drives more revenue, but I\u2019d say it\u2019s the worst possible timing from a financial point of view; but having said that, they\u2019re saving a significant amount of money on Rabah [Slimani], Rieko [Ioane], Will Connors, Ciaran Frawley, and Luke McGrath. So there\u2019s quite a bit of money that\u2019s not going to be spent on players next year that will go back towards paying that extra 10%. It does happen; we\u2019re not used to it happening in Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably a case study. If the frustrations that are out there are made public, it\u2019ll probably give us a good insight into the process and how it plays out. I do think, though, you have to be careful; loyalty in professional sport isn\u2019t always that common, but certainly players are always watching what happens to their brothers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be two sides of the story. If it hasn\u2019t been handled correctly, it just creates a little bit of doubt with the players who are still here and their prospects when their time comes, and that\u2019s not ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Ex-England duo call on Shaun Edwards to take international job after \u2018born-winner\u2019 commits to rivals<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bernard Jackman has warned Leinster that big-name players could leave the club if James Lowe\u2019s contract situation was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[134590,348,2274,123063,65320,50,5903,101,56,54,16296,55],"class_list":["post-634263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-bernard-jackman","tag-home-page","tag-ireland","tag-james-lowe","tag-leinster","tag-news","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-united-rugby-championship","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}