Leinster Team Talk Thread (Love you Furlong time)

Here are some quotes from Frawley about why he chose to leave. As an aside, all this bollocks about Leinster "letting him go" is just that, bollocks. The guy wants to leave, as explained by the man himself. All the rambling, incoherent posts taking digs at Cullen seem to have missed that.

“You look at what Connacht are building, they have Stuart Lancaster coming back, I worked under Stuart for quite a while,” explained Frawley. “Unbelievable coach and I’ve a lot of respect for him, he has a lot of respect for me. felt like maybe by jumping to Galway that could have been it."

“Connacht are trending in the right direction, so it’s figuring out am I guaranteed game time. I felt like maybe by jumping to Galway that could have been it."

Did people see the key phrase? Guaranteed game time. Frawley knows he won't get anything like the time he wants at Leinster. Now, I don't for a minute think Lancaster has guaranteed Frawley anything, but he at least has a better shot in Connacht.

Whether people want to admit it or not, that's not because Lancaster has seen something in him that Leinster cannot, it's not because Cullen has mismanaged him. It's because Connacht have less good players and there is less competition down there.

Best of luck to him, I hope he becomes the out-half he has never looked like being up to now. It would be great for Ireland if he does.

Which is fine, but the original point is Lancaster has signed him to play there.

That's significant in any discussion on Frawley. And certainly lends more credibility to the argument for him starting there this weekend, say.

Ok, now that we've established Lancaster signed him as a 10, doesn't that mean lancastre does currently see him as a 10?

Because many Irish sports fans (in general, not just rugby) are only capable of looking at the last game instead of the bigger picture.

The bigger picture of how Frawley has played when he has started at 10 for Leinster, rather than jumping up and down over how he played for 35 minutes when the game was already lost.

When was the last time he had a good game for Leinster when he started at 10?

Maybe he's carrying a knock, maybe he's being rested, but if the reason for his ommission from the squad is anything else it's solely down to 'proving' that Leinsters current best 10 isn't leaving.

This seems wildly unlikely.

Rightly or wrongly, they have never (including under Lancaster) rated him as much of an option at 10. They have never (including under Lancaster) needed a very complicated reason not to pick him.

It seems implausible now, with the season hanging by a thread, they would be internally admitting they got it wrong but that their pride is getting in the way of doing so externally.

Maybe the IRFU would prevent any ten being brought into Leinster but it's some situation to be in not to have one that the coaches can be confident about. Grim for Ireland too, honestly. Seems as if we are at least a couple of seasons before any of the next generation guys are ready to step up, assuming the likes of Gabriel or Jack Murphy have what it takes. Leinster need someone to grab the jersey, and that none has emerged as being obviously better than Frawley is very unlucky. Yeah, Frawley probably hasn't been used as well as he might at Leinster, and hard to say if he had the kind of time that'd been invested in SP to himself at ten, he'd be a better. But thats also to do with luck, he had Ross and sexton in front of him for a lot of his career. Regardless, Connnacht is a good move of him, they're on the up while Leinster are probably looking at a couple season of decline.

So just to be clear, you can’t tell me when he last had a good game as starting 10.

There’s a reason why he hasn’t been pursued with at 10. I really wish people would open their eyes and ask themselves that question instead of thinking they know better than all of the coaches he’s worked under.

Also, people need to stop basing their opinions on one 35-minute cameo whereby the game was already lost. It’s really, really foolish.