{"id":644976,"date":"2026-10-05T00:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T00:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/644976\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T00:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T00:52:08","slug":"charlie-oshea-shines-for-munster-on-encouraging-weekend-for-irish-provinces-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/644976\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie O\u2019Shea shines for Munster on encouraging weekend for Irish provinces \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the four provinces lost on an opening weekend for the first time since 2009, when Ireland<\/a>\u2019s summer tourists were still on the sidelines, the tourists\u2019 gradual return sparked a more encouraging second round of the United Rugby Championship<\/a>, with just one province suffering a loss. The quartet remain in the bottom half of the table, but each could take positives from their latest outings.<\/p>\n

Connacht<\/a> welcomed back six of their seven-strong summer tour contingent, with Billy Bohan and Sam Illo locking a key scrum as Benetton pushed for a two-score lead entering the last 10 minutes. But then a second try for Ciar\u00e1n Frawley, on his debut for the province, secured a 22-19 bonus-point win, the westerners\u2019 first victory at Stadio Monigo since April 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge result, to get five points away from home in Treviso,\u201d said Connacht head coach Stuart Lancaster<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve never come here at any point in my career and had an easy game. We had so many players playing the first game for a long time, and we had a lot of combinations not having played together, Ciar\u00e1n [Frawley] obviously being one at 10. There\u2019s always going to be that element of clunkiness and rustiness. But we dug in there, we got the win and I\u2019m delighted for the lads.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lancaster said of Frawley: \u201cIt\u2019s a dream start for him. He managed the game really well. He saw space in the backfield early on. As a 10 he put in a really accomplished performance. But it wasn\u2019t just that, it\u2019s his involvement and his enthusiasm off the field, how he\u2019s conducted himself and integrated with the lads, how he\u2019s trained. So, it\u2019s been a huge bonus for us.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows me to mix and match with Josh Ioane. He made a big impact at 15, which is obviously a great change up for us, and Sam Gilbert went to 13. We\u2019ve got Harry West and Byron Ralston injured, but Bundee [Aki] will be around next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cItaly last week, Scotland next week,\u201d added Lancaster before a long trek home to Galway and in advance of next Friday\u2019s game away to another international bulk supplier in Glasgow.<\/p>\n

Munster<\/a> beat the Bulls 26-22 at Thomond Park on Saturday thanks to a stunning, two-try, man-of-the-match full debut by 20-year-old academy outhalf Charlie O\u2019Shea. In front of an attendance of 10,318, such a shot in the arm was timely on the back of the positivity generated by a rebooted coaching ticket.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just unbelievable,\u201d said O\u2019Shea. \u201cI probably got lucky there with one of the tries but the fans were great. It\u2019s the loudest crowd I have played in front of and they really gave us energy there to kick on and get the win.\u201d<\/p>\n

Munster face Ulster<\/a> in Belfast next Saturday (5.30pm) after the latter shared 10 tries in a 33-all draw in Glasgow. Leinster<\/a> picked up a third bonus point from their early-season trek to South Africa, two more than last season, after a 26-20 loss to the Sharks in Durban.<\/p>\n

They will welcome back a tranche of Ireland frontliners for next Saturday\u2019s first competitive outing at the redeveloped Laya Arena in more than two years when hosting Cardiff (kick-off 7.45pm).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After the four provinces lost on an opening weekend for the first time since 2009, when Ireland\u2019s summer…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[107922,28454,61,60,11287,11897,112,31398,14881],"class_list":["post-644976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ciaran-frawley","tag-connacht-rugby","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-leinster-rugby","tag-munster-rugby","tag-sports","tag-ulster-rugby","tag-united-rugby-championship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644976","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=644976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}