This will be some battle in the years to come.
Leinster are objectively one of the best stocked sides in the world when it comes to out-half.
This season, the versatile Ciarán Frawley and the returning Harry Byrne will both be trying to prise the 10 jersey from the grasp of Ireland’s first-choice, Sam Prendergast.
However, a new pretender has entered the fold, in the form of the Austrian-born Casper Gabriel.
The 19-year-old learnt his rugby trade in Austria, before finishing his schooling at Terenure College, and is now part of Leinster’s academy.
While he missed out on the Ireland U20s last season, due to visa issues, he has gone from strength to strength with Terenure in the AIL, Leinster ‘A’, and in training with the Leinster senior squad.
Prendergast admits that he has not seen a huge amount of him, but pinpointed a couple of aspects of his game which stood out to him.
Speaking with SportsJOE, he said: “I haven’t seen a whole pile of him.
“He’s a great lad first of all and he’s incredibly talented.
“I haven’t seen a whole pile of him play but when I see him in training he’s incredibly talented.
“He’s a brilliant left foot on him and I think he’s got quite a freshness to how he sees the game.
“So I think he could be an unbelievably good player.”
This freshness can probably be put down to his early coaching with Donau in Austria, which was more free-spirited than the serious rigidness of Leinster school’s rugby.
In Peter O’Reilly’s impressive piece on Gabriel for the Sunday Times, Terenure RFC’s Club Director, Paul Barr, noted: “Donau is an impressive club. It’s in the shadow of the national soccer stadium but it has a 4G pitch and I was surprised by the number of kids playing, and impressed by the investment of so many volunteers. The coaching would be considered ‘light touch’. It was more about the kids having fun.
“So Caspar came from more or of a feral rugby environment and he’s probably the better for it. He has such good individual skills and it’s probably because he’s never known conformity.”
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