SO HERE HE comes, the latest candidate for Number Ten.
He may not have to go through the rigmarole of a leadership election but there is still an electorate he has to impress, a select group of two people, Andy Farrell and Mike Catt.
Tomorrow is his chance. Heavy rain and wind is forecast here in New Zealand’s capital; the rugby world keen to find out about Ciaran Frawley’s Wellington boot.
At 24, he’s hardly a kid and yet he remains untested, certainly at outhalf, a position he started just one game for Leinster this season. Beyond that he was certainly used, clocking up 1044 minutes over the course of the season, predominantly as an inside centre, although he can also play at 13 and 15.
“You don’t want to be that Jack of all trades,” he says.
In a sense, he’s right. In sporting parlance, a utility player is often code for someone who is not top drawer, the kind you trust for a wet February in Newport but not a sunny Saturday in Marseille.
Yet while he may not know it, Ciaran Frawley is in a privileged position. A year from now Farrell will only be able to bring 33 players to France, so having someone capable of doing a job in four different positions is the kind of CV that stays on a selector’s desk.
“I suppose being versatile is good for getting you into a match-day 23,” says Frawley. “But I was naturally a ten the whole way up so hopefully everything will organically work out for me.”
It’s all in his control. Tomorrow in Wellington he takes on the Maori All Blacks for a second time and what was really impressive about Frawley in his interview earlier today was the bluntness of his honesty. “The last game against the Maoris in Hamilton (which Ireland lost 32-17) wasn’t the best performance from myself but I am looking to accelerate on from that,” he said.
There’s a dual purpose for doing so. For starters, there’s guilt about losing that match in Hamilton. Tours like this are meant to build bonds to the extent that if someone gets cut, everyone bleeds. Flip that the other way, Saturday’s Test win in Dunedin boosted morale so the last thing the midweek team wants is to fail to build on that momentum.
“The three things we got wrong against the Maoris a couple of weeks ago were our kick chase, our defence and our discipline,” said Frawley. “We have had nearly two weeks to reflect on that and there are a lot of lads chomping at the bit now to get going. The coaches too are excited about seeing (whether) this group (can) grow up. We have learned a lot about what we got wrong.”
Now it is about putting it right.
“Look, it would be great for the whole group if we followed up on what happened in Dunedin because we are leading into a World Cup year and we don’t want to be just a Test team, we need to be a squad. We need to have depth. So, yes, there is that pressure, that responsibility. We just have to believe in ourselves.”
Self-confidence is not something Frawley is shy of – nor should he be. At 6”3 he is the biggest outhalf in Ireland, as good a tackler as Sexton, a decent ball striker, a slick enough handler.
The problem is he barely plays outhalf for Leinster who have the Byrne brothers when Sexton isn’t around. Still, they picked him 21 times this season. It’s not as if he was unemployed.
More to the point, we also should remind ourselves that Leinster weren’t always picking Jamison Gibson-Park to start their biggest games until Farrell did so. Things change quickly in rugby; this really is a pivotal night for Frawley.
“As you get that bit older, you want to be starting (big games) and if that is as a 10 or a 12, I don’t really mind. It helped me then when I moved to 12, to understand the game, to know that it is not really just crash ball anymore, it is having the two brains on the pitch to work it out.”
Tonight is about finding out which players can remember their lines at audition time and which ones are unsuitable for the part. It’s an unforgiving environment, international rugby. And one he’s desperate to stay in.