Cullen pleased with Frawley despite difficulties off tee
Despite a difficult night off the kicking tee on his return to the side at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday, Leinster head coach Leo Cullen insisted he is happy with the form of the versatile Ciaran Frawley.
Having watched on over the previous fortnight as Sam Prendergast and Ross Byrne shared out-half duties against Harlequins and Glasgow Warriors in the knockout rounds of the European Champions Cup, Frawley found himself back in the number 10 jersey for a United Rugby Championship clash with interprovincial rivals Ulster.
While it didn’t have a huge impact on the final outcome of the game, Frawley (who has also regularly lined out for Leinster at inside centre and full-back) was successful from just one of his four conversion attempts over the course of the action.
This might be concerning as he aims to be involved in the business end of the URC and the Champions Cup in the coming weeks, but Cullen said the Skerries man is very much in the reckoning for selection.
“It’s good. It has been a bit stop-start for him. At the early part of the season, he was starting games and the team was going well. Break for November and at the end of November the scenario has changed with Sam and Sam hasn’t really given it up,” Cullen remarked after Saturday’s game.
“It has been a bit more frustrating because Ross hasn’t been in [Ireland camp], whereas Ciaran has so he hasn’t been with us. He’s good, he got 60 minutes at number 10 today and 20 at full back when Sam comes on. It’s really positive that he’s back in the mix, up and running again.” Having already lost Stuart McCloskey just before kick-off, Ulster’s resources were further stretched by the injury withdrawals of Stewart Moore, Michael Lowry and Callum Reid in the first half of the action at Irish Rugby HQ on Saturday.
Just before Lowry was taken off in the 21st minute, Leinster responded to an early Jack Murphy penalty for Ulster with a superb individual try from player of the match Tommy O’Brien. Frawley subsequently supplied the bonuses for the first and only time in the contest to a Thomas Clarkson try, before Ulster came storming back into contention when towering lock Cormac Izuchukwu sprinted over the Leinster whitewash off an elaborate John Cooney pass.
Yet Ulster suffered a double blow in the closing moments of the opening period when a yellow card for David McCann followed the awarding of a penalty try to Leinster. This offered the hosts a 19-10 interval cushion and within two minutes of the restart, the eastern province wrapped up a bonus point courtesy of a fourth try from Garry Ringrose.
The replacements bench Cullen selected for this game almost entirely consisted of current international stars and one of those players had a devastating impact upon his introduction.
Now fully recovered from the anterior cruciate ligament injury he sustained on Ireland’s Tour of South Africa last summer, Dan Sheehan was released by Tommy O’Brien and Prendergast for tries in the 58th and 69th minutes.
Ulster eventually fired back with a converted finish by Matthew Dalton, before Sheehan completed his hat-trick less than three minutes from the end of time to leave him with an astonishing haul of 12 tries from just nine games for club and province in 2025.
Whereas Leinster are now nine points clear at the URC summit, Ulster find themselves occupying 10th spot in the table. A home game against the Sharks on Saturday precedes away encounters with Munster and Edinburgh, and head coach Richie Murphy admitted this weekend’s clash against the South African outfit is a must-win for his side.
“It definitely is. To get into the top-eight it’s very hard to know what you need, but 47/48 points would probably do it. We’re on 37 points at the moment, so ten or 11 points we would be pretty happy with,” Murphy said.
“Whether that be three wins or two wins and picking up a couple of bonus points. It’s going to be very tight because a lot of the teams have to play against each other as well.”
Tries: D Sheehan (3), T O’Brien, T Clarkson, G Ringrose, Penalty Try Cons: C Frawley, S Prendergast.
Tries: C Izuchukwu, M Dalton Cons: J Murphy 2 Pens: J Murphy
J Osborne; T O’Brien (L Turner 62), G Ringrose, R Henshaw (S Prendergast 62), J O’Brien; C Frawley, L McGrath (F Gunne 59); J Boyle (A Porter 47), G McCarthy (D Sheehan 47), T Clarkson (T Furlong 47); J McCarthy (RG Snyman 53 (M Deegan 71)), D Mangan; A Soroka, S Penny, J Culhane.
M Lowry (J Cooney 21); Z Ward, J Postlethwaite, S Moore (W De Klerk 16), J Stockdale; J Murphy, N Doak; A Warwick (C Reid 39 (T O’Toole 62)), R Herring (T Stewart 40), T O’Toole (S Wilson 57); A O’Connor (K Treadwell 47), C Izuchukwu (M Dalton 48); J McNabney (M Rea 61), N Timoney, D McCann.
G Gnecchi (FIR).