Cian Healy has revealed that he received a couple of "very spicy" offers from England and France to leave Leinster.
It was never going to happen. Instead, the province recently announced that the 36-year-old had signed on the dotted line for a 19th season with the province.
His last game was another record-breaker as he jumped over Ronan O'Gara in the Champions Cup standings to 111 appearances in the semi-final against Northampton Saints at Croke Park.
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Cue a pitchside presentation from the new Taoiseach, Simon Harris, and another from the coaching staff in the dressing-room afterwards.
"It was nice to receive that," said Healy. "I didn't expect anything coming. I'd take a medal instead, though."
This from the man who already has four Champions Cup winners medals, seven URC ones and a Challenge Cup one, plus all that he's won with Ireland, including two Grand Slams.
The London final can wait until after Ulster on Saturday night. "You want to win every trophy you can," Healy said. "Yeah, it's the top dog, but we'll deal with it when we get to it.
"There's probably been energy expended in the past in the wrong places and you mess up a different part of your season.
"So I think it's important to stay job focussed and we go, like, day by day, week by week, is pretty much how it goes in here and it works. So come Monday we'll deal with next week."
The hunger to succeed is insatiable in this great loosehead survivor. Now a dad, there was no question of him not continuing for at least one more year.
"The deal was done a while ago so it's been off my chest for a bit," said Healy. "I've been in a happy place for a while, no extra-curricular noise.
"It's a very short career and to get offered another shot at it, another year to achieve things and to make special memories with a group of people that you won't do any more with after you stop, yeah, it's a pretty easy decision.
"I have a very driven house at home, my wife is very driven in work and I'm very driven in here and I think it feeds in naturally at home, we support each other in that. So home-wise there was no question about it."
It is nine years since he suffered the serious neck injury that almost ended his career. Either side of that, Healy was handed options to take flight.
"There was a couple of very spicy offers back in the day, yeah," he said. "If anything they were just there though, I never wanted to leave.
"I never had ambitions of not playing for Ireland or Leinster. I knew I wanted to be here and living away from my family and friends doesn't greatly appeal to me.
"It was 2014/15. There was a big offer after my injury. But that's the noise, that stuff. It's nice when you're young to feel wanted...you don't say no straight away!"
There was a time when his friend Jamie Heaslip was seriously considering a move abroad. Could that have made a difference to Healy's own thinking?
"No," came the definitive reply. "Fly by your own wing."
And he has ploughed his own furrow for so long. Healy has always preferred to lead by example rather than words - being a part of Leinster or Ireland's leadership group wasn't for him.
"I stay away from those things and never put my hand up to them," he said. It's not my vibe. Every shepherd needs his sheep and I'll be a sheep there. Like, I probably prefer one-on-one, very relaxed chats about things as opposed to meetings about intense topics."
That doesn't mean he doesn't like to dispense advice to Leinster's rising young props such as Michael Milne, Jack Boyle and Paddy McCarthy.
"They've all come to me and asked me for something and, like, I can't tell them what's right because everyone's feel is different," reasoned Healy.
"But what I would say, 'here's something I have done in the past that was s***, that didn't work, you can try it, but it didn't work, or here's something that worked really well for me'.
"I'll say, 'what you're doing looks well, does it feel good?' and have a conversation like that
"Half the time I'm wondering if one of the coaches has teed them up, 'go and ask him...' because their questions are top end!"
Meanwhile, Healy believes Ulster have done the right thing by making Richie Murphy's stay a more permanent.
Ahead of Leinster's visit to Belfast, Ulster confirmed that Murphy, who had been the interim head coach for the past two months, had been given a two-year contract.
Healy was a keen observer of Murphy during his spells with Leinster and Ireland, when they won the Champions Cup and the Six Nations together.
"I think he's a class coach, I was delighted for him when I saw the news," he said. "When he went in as interim I thought it was a good fit. He is a great people person and organiser of what he wants and how he wants the team to play.
"He did incredibly well with the under-20s during his time there and that's very well recognised and now to have an opportunity up North is great for him, huge."
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