Tadhg Beirne has revealed that he has a clause in his contract ahead of the Rugby World Cup in Australia next year.

The 34-year-old Munster captain was speaking ahead of the province’s Champions Cup opener this weekend against Racing 92 at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, where the team will remember Anthony Foley on the 10-year anniversary of his death.

Beirne is hoping to lead out the side in Cork in what could be his last time at the home of Cork GAA. Beirne’s current central contract is up at the end of the World Cup next year, as it looks like there may be huge turnover in the makeup of the Irish squad following the tournament in Australia.

Neither Tadhg Beirne nor any of his Irish teammates have announced yet what their plans are post-World Cup, but he did reveal that his contract may not be up when everyone expected.

‘Well, I have a clause in my contract so I’ll probably know where I stand more post-Six Nations,’ Beirne said.

‘Once that clause happens or not, if it doesn’t happen then I’ll probably have to start thinking a little bit more. But at the moment, I don’t have to worry about that.

‘Focus obviously is just here [in Munster] and Ireland going forward, and I’ll know where I stand post that.’

Much of the talk this season has been the dominance of mauls, with laws being tweaked over the summer giving attacking mauls a much bigger advantage, and thus we’ve seen more tries off the back of mauls being scored early this term.

‘You’re going to see a lot more mauls for sure, certainly teams going for the corner a lot more, I would presume,’ Beirne said about the new laws.

‘Because if you get them set up, or you get any kind of a go-forward, you [the defence] are in the s*** really, there’s not much you can do, because the penalties, the advantages, everything, they come quick, and sometimes you get caught in a position where you can’t get out of, and that’s just the way it goes.

‘It’s a fine art now to make sure you’re defending the mauls properly, and there’s a lot of pressure on you when you are on your own five-metre line to make sure you’re defending them well.

‘So I do feel like you’re going to see a lot more maul tries going forward and a lot more penalties and a lot more teams deciding to go that way, for sure.’