He's moved on, captained Leinster for the first time, and looks set to play a big part in their derby clash against Munster on Saturday before heading off with Ireland to take on the All Blacks.
But that won’t change the fact that Josh van der Flier was overlooked by British and Irish Lions head coach Andy Farrell when he was selecting his Test teams in the summer.
Van der Flier, World Rugby Player of the Year in 2022, was on his maiden Lions tour and delivering his trademark consistency, aggresive on both sides of the ball, and being touted as a Test starter.
The 32-year-old started four games of the Australia tour and came off the bench in another but missed out on a Test cap, with Tom Curry, Tadhg Beirne, Jack Conan, Ben Earl and Jac Morgan, Farrell’s preferred back row options.
Of all the players to miss out, it seems like Van der Flier was hardest done by. From the outside, it’s hard to see what more he could have done.
The Lions won the first two Tests and lost the third.
The Wicklow man was up for media duty for Leinster ahead of Saturday’s BKT URC clash with Munster and was inevitably asked about his omission and what the conversation with his international boss was like.
"I spoke to him each of the Test weeks," the back row told RTÉ Sport.
"It’s a funny one. You work your whole career to get on a Lions tour.
"You’d bite anyone’s hand off to get the opportunity just to go and then once you are there the overall goal is to play in the Test games.
"Yeah, it was definitely disappointing. I had good chats with Andy.
"In fairness, he’s always really honest, giving you things to work on and everything.
"It was more he said it was a gut feeling about the balance of back row, that was the decision he made and that was the way he wanted his back row balance.
"In fairness, that’s what you want from coaches, you just want, like in anything in life, you just want them to be straight and honest with you and Andy is always that.
"He had his decision and that’s his decision."
Van der Flier is not the type of player to pout, and there’s no question that he’ll use that disappointment to fuel the next stage.
That starts with a derby at Croke Park on Saturday (5.15pm) against second-placed Munster, who have won three from three.
"They’ve been very good, they’ve looked very organised and full of energy," said Van der Flier, in line for his 160th cap.
"We’re expecting Munster at their best because they’ve looked very impressive, and three wins from three is a flawless start.
"They’ve obviously lost a few senior players from last season, but they’ve looked good, a lot of young lads playing well, a good mix of experience there as well."
Still, Leinster have won seven of the last eight and, set to welcome back another tranche of Lions, will go into the game as favourites.
"I’ve been involved in a good few of those games, and we’ve probably come up with some of our best performance of the year on those days, for whatever reason," said Van der Flier when asked what it will take to maintain the upper hand.
"It means a lot to us playing against Munster, there are huge rivals.
"There are a lot of lads now who wouldn’t remember all the games but I remember when I was younger, Munster were by far the dominant side and it was always a tough watch when they played Leinster.
"It’s probably turned in recent years but it’s always a huge game, one of the ones you are incredibly excited for and we’ve managed to put in pretty good performances.
"There have been some close games but most of the times we’ve been on the right side of it.
"It’ll take our best."
Van der Flier captained Leinster for the first time in last weekend’s 31-5 win over Sharks and, given his seniority, it’s a wonder he hasn’t been handed the armband sooner.
He doesn’t think he’ll captain the side this coming Saturday but reflected on the "honour", his first time to skipper a side since a sixth-year senior firsts school final for Wesley, a game they lost to St Andrews.
"It was just a bit of a busier week, a lot of it unknown," he said.
"Last time I was captaining a side was in sixth year in a cricket final.
"A cricket match is a bit harder to do as captain, I think.
"You are kinda touching base with everyone, the coaches and with other players around different areas of the game, what we want to focus on in terms of messaging.
"There’s a few meetings that the captain would be involved in towards the end of the week as well so there was a bit of that.
"The lads were very helpful, there’s some very experienced lads that helped out and it was a cool experience and a great honour to be asked to do it.
"It was nice to get the win, first home game of the season, so happy enough with that."
