Frawley: To Get To 100 Caps Is Very Special

Frawley was introduced in the 49th minute of Leinster’s runaway 76-5 win over Zebre Parma at the Aviva Stadium, and the province’s latest centurion made his time on the pitch count with a classy try on the hour mark, along with two late conversions.

It was his fifth game since the Guinness Men’s Six Nations, including three starts, and he replaced Sam Prendergast at out-half as Leo Cullen’s men made sure they will advance to the BKT United Rugby Championship play-offs as top seeds.

“It’s unreal. I’ve had a good few injuries along the way, but to get here now is very special,” Frawley told Leinster Rugby TV, as he reflected on what it means to reach the 100-cap mark.

“Look, it was a tough week to bounce back after last week, but the lads were unbelievably positive all week, and they made it a special week.

“It’s just lovely to bounce back like that. There’s a good few weeks coming up now, so we have to hit the ground running next week again and back it up.”

It was a painful postmortem following Leinster’s Investec Champions Cup exit at the hands of Northampton Saints, and that result puts even more pressure on them lifting the URC trophy next month. Their last title win was in 2021 when it was the PRO14.

For Frawley and his team-mates, they have earned a potential home run to the URC final with next Saturday’s clash with Glasgow Warriors at Irish Rugby HQ not impacting their final placing. As table toppers, they will have home advantage for as far as they get in the play-offs.

The Dubliner is the very definition of a homegrown hero, playing for local club Skerries the whole way up from minis to senior level. He lined out with them in the All-Ireland League at just 18, before joining the Leinster Academy and switching clubs to UCD where he studied.

The 27-year-old has not forgotten his club roots – famously winning an All-Ireland Under-17 title with the Goats back in 2014 – and the Skerries RFC members and his former team-mates are always very supportive of him on days like this.

“Skerries are unbelievable to me, they’ve followed me along the whole way, constantly messaging me.

“But it’s the same outside of that, my family from Clare, from Cork, everyone that came up today to support me. It will be brilliant to see them as well.”

The versatile Ireland back received a special commemorative jersey for his 100th Leinster match from the province’s most-capped player of all-time, retiring prop Cian Healy. He was also pictured pitchside afterwards with his sister Alannah and grandfather Justin Maguire.

They were no doubt beaming with great pride when Leinster’s tenth try was scored. Jack Conan tidied up a messy scrum, linking with Jimmy O’Brien who fed Frawley on his inside, and he took off through a gap, impressively outmuscling three defenders to make the line.

He quipped; “I didn’t know I had the gas in me to get there! Jimmy was screaming on my right, he was dying for a try, so no, look, it’s lovely to get one.”

Meanwhile, number 8 Conan, who captained Leinster following Caelan Doris’ season-ending shoulder injury, was happy with how the squad responded to last Saturday’s Champions Cup semi-final heartbreak.

Closing tries from replacement James Culhane and Jamie Osborne made it a record URC win, eclipsing both the Vodacom Bulls (78-12 v Zebre Parma, April 2023), and the Ospreys (75-7 v Benetton Rugby, February 2014).

The 71-point gap represents the league’s biggest ever winning margin, and Leinster’s 12-try haul matched the most tries they have scored in a URC fixture. They also notched a dozen tries when beating Glasgow Warriors 76-14 in their 2022 quarter-final.

“It’s been definitely a week of ups and downs, and a lot of distractions, but the message all week was just we wanted the focus on us,” admitted Conan.

“We weren’t good enough last week by any measure so we wanted to make sure we lived up to our own standards, and all you can do is do that the next opportunity you get, and I felt like we did that in spades today.

“Yeah, disappointed with what happened last week but then it’s about just tackling the moment in front of your face and I’m happy enough with the performance.”

Conan set the tone with the manner of his own performance. His defence-slashing early break created the opening try for Rónan Kelleher, and he finished the penultimate round match with some eye-catching statistics.

Selected for his second British & Irish Lions tour earlier this week, the Bray native was Leinster’s leading ball carrier, making almost 140 metres from 20 carries, and had three line breaks, two try assists, beat five defenders, and made nine tackles.

Second-from-bottom Zebre may have taken a heavy beating, but Conan highlighted how difficult they made it for Cullen’s side at times. Jacopo Trulla and Simone Gesi in the back-three were tricky to deal with, given their elusive running and clever counter-attacking.

“It was pretty tough, it was pretty chaotic. To be fair to Zebre, they split us open a good few times off some of the kick stuff.

“Their winger and full-back, the two lads were really good. They made a lot of line breaks, so definitely an area to improve (for us).

“It’s tough, when games are so chaotic like that you don’t want to force things. You still want to be able to stick to systems and stick to processes, and not let the chaotic nature of the game affect the style you want to play and your system.

“We probably got that right at times, and wrong at other times. So yeah, some good, some bad,” added the 32-year-old.