Top outhalf debate rolls on despite Leinster vs Munster Croke Park clash

So then, a month in, the marquee game has been and gone, yet the picture actually doesn’t seem that much clearer. Indeed the waters appear even more muddied. The blue 10 jersey is still up for grabs and even the green version is more of a debate.
It’s been a good couple of weeks for Ciarán Frawley. Of his 89 appearances for Leinster over the previous eight seasons, he had only started a dozen games at 10. However, in the last two weeks, Frawley started back-to-back games at 10 for the first time since February 2020.
He was creator in chief and finisher of a wonderful try in Treviso, while his counter-attacking, ball-carrying strength and quick hands were, in turn, instrumental in three of Leinster’s four tries last Saturday.
Frawley has landed all bar one of his conversions, including a couple from the touchline, has punted well and tackled strongly. Even the long-range penalty which hit the upright at Croke Park illustrated the distance in his place kicks.
Perhaps most of all, as in his late cameos in the Champions Cup final and in Durban for Ireland, Frawley just looks more comfortable at 10 than ever before.
Last Friday, for the second time, Leo Cullen said “now that he [Frawley] wants to play at outhalf”, perhaps betraying a hint of weariness, or not. But Frawley’s versatility is a very handy commodity and there’s been plenty of investment in the Byrnes, Ross and Harry, who are fine outhalves. And then there’s also Sam Prendergast, shooting up on the rails. Cullen could have done without the pressure from Frawley and, one suspects, Andy Farrell.
Based on the latter’s summer choices, the pecking order in green is Jack Crowley, Frawley and Prendergast in that order. Crowley, thanks in the main to Leinster’s rush defence, seemed to have less time on the ball in Croke Park. By contrast, for the most part, Frawley was playing off-front football, especially in that devastating opening quarter, thanks to the more potent carrying of Caelan Doris, Tadhg Furlong et al, and the way Jamie Osborne acted as a first receiver.
But Crowley still looks the man in possession for the All Blacks game, even if the competition is heating up, which is no bad thing. Whatever Leinster do, Farrell is not averse to bucking provincial thinking, and in their different ways, Joe McCarthy, Jamison Gibson-Park, Mack Hansen and Jamie Osborne, as well as Frawley and Prendergast, have all been fast-tracked into the Irish set-up relatively in advance of schedule.
Starting Prendergast in all three Emerging Ireland games looked pointed too. The 21-year-old looked the part too, spiralling the ball vast distances at altitude but also demonstrating the variety to his kicking and passing games, and that innate ability to pick the right pass off either hand at the last second, while somehow always seeming to have extra time on the ball, like all class players.
Also, following his six penalties to touch against the Western Force, five Irish throws were 5m out and the other 6m. This has an exponential effect on the try-scoring returns from going to the corner. As for his biggest work on defence, Prendergast was palpably pushing up harder in defence and looking for contact, even counter-rucking. If he’s also picked for his second Leinster start this season against Connacht on Saturday, that could be another pointer towards an Irish debut against Fiji.
Talking to one former Leinster player, he wasn’t alone in thinking that Leinster’s defence looks on a different level now that Jacques Nienaber has had a full preseason. If so, then Munster deserve even more credit for those nine clean line breaks and two tries. They also had one wrongly chalked off and left two behind.
And then also, just as the thought lands that Leinster are even stronger contenders for the Champions Cup, Antoine Dupont is sprung from the bench for his seasonal reappearance by Toulouse at home to Clermont in the 45th minute last Saturday night after his weeks of post-Olympics, globe-trotting and glad-handling.
Within five minutes he sniped over the line, and within another 10 minutes he had completed a rapturously received hat-trick after supporting and taking a no-look offload by Ange Capuozzo and then winning a foot race from his own 10m line to complete a countering run and kick by the electric Italian. The ball bounced as if ordained to do so into his hands without breaking stride. The man has supernatural powers.
There’s little that this column can say about Ronnie Dawson that hasn’t been said already in the tributes which flowed following his death over the weekend. Suffice it to say that as well as the Dawson family losing their patriarch, in addition to Tom Kiernan, Syd Millar and indeed Tony O’Reilly in the last three years, Irish rugby has lost another giant.
Not alone were his achievements as a player and captain with Ireland (winning 28 caps was the equivalent of a century in the modern game), the Lions and the Barbarians extraordinary, but he was in advance of his time too. Ireland’s first head coach, he was on the first Rugby World Cup organising committee, was president of both the Leinster Branch and IRFU, and chaired the council of the IRB, now World Rugby, which he served for 20 years (1974 to 1994).
Beyond all that, Ronnie was just a total gentleman at all times, not the least bit arrogant about all that he achieved, always polite and, something of a dapper figure, always immaculately dressed, whenever he emerged from his green Mercedes. He always retained a genuine love of the game too. Just one of the nicest people you could meet.
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