The 25-year-old Corkman’s priorities have changed considerably since he last put pen to paper on a three-year deal with his native province that will expire next June.

Zebo became a father eight months ago to son Jacob and he recognises he can longer think merely for himself when it comes to deciding where spends the next two or three years of his professional rugby career.

Speculation in the media has linked the exciting back three star with a lucrative move to the French Top 14 with Pau, Toulouse and Stade Francais all potential destinations while Munster are more than keen to hang on to the services of their homegrown talent with the X factor to put bums on seats at Thomond Park.

More than 20,000 Munster supporters will go there this Saturday evening in the hope of seeing Zebo help the Reds recapture their early-season form and defeat old European rivals Leicester Tigers to continue a winning start to the Champions Cup Pool 4 campaign and the player himself said yesterday he fully focused on just that task, despite the ongoing transfer rumour mill.

“It has been grand,” Zebo said, “just doing my best to focus on the rugby, and do the best I can for my team-mates. We’ve a bad couple of weeks with two losses back-to-back, which probably isn’t acceptable. We have a big weekend coming up so all of the focus is on Leicester.” Zebo maintained he was not overly anxious about concluding his contractual issues urgently, as long as they reached a satisfactory conclusion for himself and partner Elvira Fernandez.

“I think whatever is best for me and my family, at the end of the day, once everything is known then it will be easier to make my decision, and decide what is best for me.

“It is not just me so I can’t be selfish. There is a lot of things going to come into play. Hopefully soon enough we will be able to make a decision, and cross that bridge then.

“Once the people who are working for me, in trying to sort that out, come back to me and say here’s what you have, then I will decide. Until then I don’t know.”

Munster meant the world to him, Zebo said, but professional rugby was about more than sentiment.

“Munster will always, always mean a lot to me. It’s my childhood club. I have supported Munster all of my life. It always will mean a great deal to me.

“But at the end of the day, rugby is a business and you can’t get swallowed up. You have to look after yourself, and know what’s best for you and your family. Hopefully everything works out the way I would like it to. We will see what happens.”

With Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt favouring home-based players in his selections for the national team as well as their on-demand availability under the IRFU’s player management structures, Irish talent has in the main been retained by the provinces.

Zebo, though, was overlooked by Schmidt for Ireland’s crucial World Cup games against France and the quarter-final defeat to Argentina despite impressing at full-back in the earlier pool games against Romania and Italy.

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.