{"id":661730,"date":"2026-10-22T05:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661730\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T05:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T05:00:13","slug":"ciaran-frawley-could-connacht-fly-half-earn-ireland-starting-spot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/661730\/","title":{"rendered":"Ciaran Frawley: Could Connacht fly-half earn Ireland starting spot?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Since the retirement of Johnny Sexton in 2023, the topic of who should be Ireland&#8217;s first-choice fly-half has been a never-ending discussion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sam Prendergast looked to have taken charge earlier this year but, after a shaky start to the Six Nations, Jack Crowley was handed the keys and impressed for the rest of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When Crowley picked up a back injury at the end of last season, Prendergast slotted back in the 10 jersey for the summer&#8217;s Nations Championship matches against Australia and New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ciaran Frawley got his chance against Japan and put in a solid display but, with Crowley and Harry Byrne injured, can he now establish himself as first choice under Andy Farrell?<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For former Ireland scrum-half Conor Murray, he is one to watch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Murray said Prendergast played &#8220;really well&#8221; as he was named player of the match in Leinster&#8217;s Investec Champions Cup win over Clermont on Saturday, but Frawley has also caught his eye.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Fresh from a summer move which has taken him out of the shadows at Leinster, where he was rarely deployed at fly-half, to first choice at Connacht, the 28-year-old has settled in seamlessly under Stuart Lancaster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Since the retirement of Johnny Sexton in 2023, the topic of who should be Ireland&#8217;s first-choice fly-half has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":661731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-661730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","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\/661730","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=661730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/661730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/661731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=661730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=661730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=661730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}