Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

I've thought long and hard about the Leinster number 10 situation. Ross, Harry, Ciaran, Sam and Charlie.

In an ideal World, Ross Byrne is your consistent starter until Sam Prendergast develops into the player we all want him to be, then Ross is your 10 off the bench. Frawley remains at Leinster as Leinster's utility back who allows them to go with a 6-2 split. Harry makes a move to Inside Centre like Owen Farrell does for England. This way Leinster get to keep all of their quality fly halves but just distribute them differently. Charlie Tector makes the move to Connacht.

Realistically. Ross stays on as fly half until Sam gets up to speed, Ciaran Frawley is the utility back in the Nienaber system, and Harry eventually moves on to Ulster in search of consistent game time. Charlie Tector makes the move to Connacht. Ross, Ciaran and Sam would be the three fly half options.

In the ideal world, we would hold on to all our quality 10's and this is the only way Harry would get game time if everyone was healthy. Harry is about 15 stone. Osborne is 15.6, Ngatai is 16.5 and Henshaw is 15.10. Harry would be undersized for the role in terms of weight but I love the idea of multiple playmakers on the field at one time. But like i Said in the realistic World, Harry is gone to Ulster.

Frawley could get time at 15 and as a back up 10, Ngatai is gone next season, Barrett can play 10-15 so he doesn't need to be nailed down as only an Inside centre, I honestly think Barrett at right wing gives Leinster a serious amount of umph with Lowe, Henshaw, Ringrose and Keenan, plus not having Barrett at 12 gives more room for Osborne.

But like I said, realistically, Harry would probably be the odd man out long term due to his injury history.

If anything, I'd look at Tector as a utility player. I reckon he could do a good job at 12/15? As for HB, he will be in the mix. I expect him to start this week. I expect he'll be getting past RB too, in the long run.

Agree with most of that.

I do feel AF rates Frawley higher as a 10 than the Leinster management team

Farrell's interest in Frawley as a 10 ended when Crowley showed he was good enough for it.

Farrell likely considered Frawley at out half because of a lack of other options (Sexton, H.Byrne and Carbery were very injury prone, Jackson wasn't an option, Burns and Carty deemed not good enough, Crowley mostly playing 12/15 at the time), he needed to widen the pool ahead of the WC. With the lack of out-and-out 10s, Frawley was attractive for the WC squad because he also covered other positions.

Farrell tried out Frawley as a 10 then to see if he was up to it with a view to him rounding out the WC squad. Crowley establishing himself gave Farrell his third 10 and the experiment with Frawley there ended.

Since that AB XV game, how many minutes has Frawley played 10 for Ireland or Leinster?

It's relevant to Leinster in that people keep suggesting Frawley as a 10 on the basis that "Ireland see Frawley as a fly-half". If we remove the idea that Farrell sees Frawley as a 10 (instead circumstances at the time lead to him looking at Frawley as a 10, circumstances which then changed) then the case for Leinster playing Frawley 10 outside of emergencies evaporates.

I think Frawley is improving with every minute he's on the pitch. He has been invaluable to Leinster this year.

I would love to see him get a run at 10 though.