{"id":206561,"date":"2025-12-23T09:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T09:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/206561\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T09:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T09:05:11","slug":"leinster-coach-admits-he-would-be-sad-to-see-outstanding-bloke-ciaran-frawley-leave-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/206561\/","title":{"rendered":"Leinster coach admits he would be sad to see \u2018outstanding bloke\u2019 Ciar\u00e1n Frawley leave \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breaking up is hard to do, but Jacques Nienaber knows there comes a point where you have to respect a player\u2019s wish to move on at a key juncture in their career.<\/p>\n

It emerged yesterday that Ciar\u00e1n Frawley is poised to leave Leinster<\/a> at the end of this season and join Connacht<\/a>, where he will be reunited with his old coach Stuart Lancaster.<\/p>\n

A valued utility back at Leinster, Frawley has found starts in his preferred position of outhalf difficult to come by. This is largely down to him falling behind Sam Prendergast and Harry Byrne in the pecking order.<\/p>\n

None of his eight appearances this season have come by way of starts in the number 10 jersey. Head coach Leo Cullen has opted instead to switch Frawley between inside centre and fullback, where he was deployed in last Friday\u2019s late win over Ulster<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With a World Cup coming down the tracks, the 28-year-old has designs on making that Ireland<\/a> squad and forcing the outhalf conversation. Despite his versatility and worth to Leinster, he will know that regular game time elsewhere should stand to him in that regard. <\/p>\n

Speaking yesterday, ahead of Saturday\u2019s United Rugby Championship clash with Munster<\/a> at Thomond Park, Leinster senior coach Nienaber refused to confirm the move. He said it wasn\u2019t his brief to do so, but rather that of Cullen and Guy Easterby, the chief operating officer. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy only input is from the rugby point of view \u2013 what\u2019s their form on the field, so the off-field stuff I\u2019m not too tuned into,\u201d said the South African. \u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything official yet, but he\u2019s an outstanding bloke and if it\u2019s the truth or not, listen, it would be lovely having him and working with him until the end of the season.<\/p>\n

\"CiaránCiar\u00e1n Frawley has found game time at outhalf hard to come by at Leinster. Photograph: James Crombie\/Inpho <\/p>\n

\u201cFrawls, as an individual and a man, is a very, very important guy in the club. I\u2019m not talking about rugby, I\u2019m just talking about the person he is. He\u2019s a team guy and as the Irish would say, there\u2019s always good craic around him, there\u2019s always a little bit of a buzz going around him. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs a rugby player, he\u2019s a quality rugby player. I really enjoy him as a person, I really enjoy working with him and he\u2019s been good to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Christmas takeaways from a strange provincial weekend<\/p>\n

Pressed on why Frawley might find a move to Connacht appealing, considering the opportunities it could unlock going into a World Cup, Nienaber accepted the general point that players will always look to do right by their own careers.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cLet\u2019s not talk about Frawls, let\u2019s talk about any player \u2013 whenever a player or a coach moves on, they move on normally for personal reasons. Sometimes it\u2019s family, sometimes it\u2019s what they think is best for their career.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn clubs and teams that I\u2019ve been involved with, you have to respect that. So, if a player decides this is the best for him, then that\u2019s the right thing to do. Ultimately, it\u2019s his career and he has to make decisions that he thinks will fit his career the best. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you lose a player, it\u2019s never nice, especially if it\u2019s a standout guy. It\u2019s sad. Last year, Mikey Milne went down to Munster, you also think of Lee Barron and you think of Michael Alaalatoa. He went from here to Clermont and now to Munster.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always going to be movement and players do it because they think that\u2019s the right thing for them, for their family, for their career. One has to respect that, if that\u2019s the right word. It\u2019s a personal opinion from a player.\u201d<\/p>\n

For now, Frawley and Leinster\u2019s attention switches back to the job at hand and their post-Christmas arm wrestle with Munster this Saturday. It follows their 31-14 Croke Park pummelling<\/a> at the hands of their old foes in October.<\/p>\n

\"Munster’sMunster\u2019s Jack Crowley celebrates a penalty in the late stages of their comprehensive URC victory against Leinster at Croke Park in October. Photograph: Ben Brady\/Inpho <\/p>\n

But since that shock to the system, Leinster regrouped to win their next five games in all competitions, albeit with areas of concern still lingering around aspects of those performances, chiefly against Ulster, Leicester and Harlequins.<\/p>\n

The criticism levelled against Leinster is that they look stale. While Nienaber admits he would rather win with more panache, he feels there is still value in leaning on the uglier side of the game when required.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s for everyone to see that we\u2019re probably not firing on all cylinders,\u201d he said. \u201cWe do some good things, some brilliant things and then we make it difficult for ourselves in doing something a little bit out of character. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we make a mistake, like last weekend, Ulster were good enough to capitalise on it. The same with Munster when we played them in Croke Park. That\u2019s something we are working hard at to try and fix. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut if there\u2019s a little positive we can take it\u2019s that, especially over the last two weekends, you go in at half-time trailing and you must find a way. It\u2019s ugly and it\u2019s a grind and it\u2019s tenacity, but they find a way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nienaber added: \u201cAs a coach, you would love it to be perfect, where there\u2019s no pressure and things go according to plan. For the heart, for the nerves and just for sanity in your brain, it would have been lovely [against Ulster].<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s lots of satisfaction for a team that\u2019s under the pump and who must find solutions and I feel that bonds a team together. We had to dig deep to get a result so, yes, it\u2019s very satisfying when you get out on the right side of things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breaking up is hard to do, but Jacques Nienaber knows there comes a point where you have to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28454,42,11287,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-206561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-connacht-rugby","tag-headlines","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}