Frawley and Nash taking pressure in their stride

Andy Farrell has spoken before of the need for players to find their feet from the moment they arrive in camp.

SAME GAME DIFFERENT JERSEY: Ciaran Frawley and Calvin Nash will be vying for a place on the plane to France for the World Cup. Pic: ©INPHO/Ben Brady

Time will tell how far Ciaran Frawley and Calvin Nash’s World Cup ambitions have taken them but they are entitled even now, in the midst of the journey, to look back and appreciate the distance travelled just to make it this far.

Their provincial loyalties are split between blue and red but they made up two-thirds of the Ireland players making their Test debuts on Saturday – Tom Stewart being the other – and the occasion made for a cocktail of the new and the familiar.

Over six years had passed since they last shared an Irish dressing-room. That was in the Avchala Stadium in Georgia for a World U20 Championship win against Samoa that fended off the spectre of a relegation playoff date a week later.

That was pressure but Saturday was a different scale.

The first bite at the senior international grade. Over 40,000 people layered on the stands around and looming over the field. Relatives and friends from Dublin, Limerick and, in Frawley’s case, a girlfriend who had flown in from Montauk, all on site.

And most pertinent of all: Andy Farrell sat in the coach’s box.

“Like, there's anxiety no matter what kind of game it is,” said the Leinster back. “You even speak to the older lads there at lunch or at the pre-match meal and they say, 'lads, it's doesn't get any easier, if anything it gets worse'.

“So we've actually been rooming together the whole time, since 20s when we played together up until before this when we were even saying in the room, 'Jesus, I'm bricking it'. But once you come down it's actually grand.” 

Frawley got his chance during the interval when Jimmy O’Brien was given the hook over a shoulder issue. Nash had a longer wait. It was the 62nd-minute before he replaced Robbie Henshaw and he admitted to thoughts of impatience as the half wore on.

His impact was immediate, if unforeseen, as he engaged in some argy-bargy with a handful of Italians during a break in play. If that was a case of nerves oozing out through his pores then it showed that this is no shrinking violet.

Farrell has spoken before of the need for players to find their feet from the moment they arrive in camp. There is no time for stragglers so the fact that these two have made the field of play is a sign in itself.

These are people who believe they belong.

“At the end of the day we're obviously up here for a reason as well and we're still playing rugby,” said Nash whose candidacy for a late run at the World Cup was fast-forwarded by an impressive effort with Emerging Ireland in South Africa. “It's just with a different jersey on.

“It's still rugby at the end of the day and we need to be confident in the work that we have done in the past and, even if we do make mistakes or whatever, they're all development and their all learnings that we can bring forward.” 

If the Munster man has shot up late on the rails then Frawley’s emergence has been a slower burn with injuries consistently holding back a player who was first called into the senior squad by Farrell in November of 2021.

Ireland played 19 games between that and this defeat of Italy, which goes to show how unlucky Frawley has been, but he got game time against the Maoris in New Zealand last summer and the coaches’ interest and investment in him is obvious.

Farrell kept him informed as to his thoughts and what he wanted and needed to see from him throughout it all and Frawley’s versatility is a huge attraction ahead of a tournament where the working party will be limited to 33 players.

This is a man who can slot in at out-half, both centre positions and at full-back. He isn’t alone in that ability to sing different tunes though and his inexperience at this level is reflected at club level where he can still only boast of 67 appearances with Leinster.

“It's very competitive in there. It's hard to believe they're going to drop however many, nine or 11 players, but at the moment you're trying to put your best foot forward and try to get selected for the game around the corner, focus on what's coming.

“You obviously have the big picture in the back of your mind but if you get ahead of yourself you might not perform on the day. Andy gave us the nod Monday, which was great, settled the nerves a bit, but my goal was to make sure you put in a good performance.”