Leinster’s Ciaran Frawley has been praised for his performance in the relatively unfamiliar full-back role in his team’s win against Munster on Saturday.
The Dublin men claimed a 27-13 victory over their Irish rivals as they continue their charge in the United Rugby Championship, sitting at the summit of the table and are the only unbeaten side this season.
Frawley was required to don the 15 shirt following several injuries to Leinster’s back three but delivered a smart performance before injuring his shoulder on the hour mark.
X-factor
Leinster scrum-half Luke McGrath praised Frawley for his versatility and X-factor as well as his ability to take on information in the build-up to a game.
“He’s brilliant,” said McGrath to The 42. “He can play in so many different positions, he’s got a bit of that X-factor as well.
“You can see he was making line-breaks from 15, and he hasn’t played a lot of 15, but he just soaks it all in, all the information he was getting throughout the week. I thought he was brilliant.”
Leinster coach Leo Cullen was pleased with how his back three operated, given that it is a challenging period ahead of the November Tests to manage the squad.
“It’s a little bit of a makeshift back three. We’re just lacking a little bit of cohesion because we have chopped and changed, some of the combinations have changed,” Cullen said.
“You take a little bit of a risk with that. We’ve had a lot of players up and running now which is good. When guys split apart, the next few weeks we have our game against Scarlets, that’s our sole focus now, trying to get as much as we possibly we can this week, with X amount of players gone (with injury and Ireland camp).
“Most teams are hit, that’s the pot luck of the schedule, who you get on these international window weeks, where some teams are missing a tonne of players, and others are missing next to nobody.”
Solid bonus point against a rival
Above all, Cullen was delighted to grab a bonus point from their rivals but still feels there is much to do for his team.
“We are delighted to get a bonus point win in a Leinster-Munster game, it doesn’t happen that often, does it?,” Cullen said.
“There are parts of the game that we can look back on where we create a lot of opportunities in the first half but we are not particularly clinical in terms of finishing them off.
“Then we get ourselves in a situation where Munster with 14 men get in twice in the first 47 minutes and then suddenly they are ahead in the game. We showed better composure from then on, both sides of the ball. Up to that point we are probably just a little bit impatient at times. We are forcing certain things, we are falling on the wrong side of some calls with the officials.
“It is the composure part that we are lacking. Having said that, to come away with four tries is a positive outcome for us. The points (tally) up to this point is positive.
“We have used a fair few players. It’s always tricky at the start of the season. If you go back and look, particularly coming off (international) tours you have a lot of moving parts, coming and going at the start of the season, so to get six wins is pleasing, particularly as three of them are interpro games.”
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