ANYONE WHO HAS seen Antoine Frisch playing for Bristol in recent months can’t have been anything other than impressed. The offloading, the carrying, the kicking, the rangy running style. Lots of boxes have been ticked.

The 6ft 3ins French inside centre stood out against a full-strength Saracens team at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last month, scoring one try and laying on another with a big sidestep of England international Elliot Daly followed by an offload.

But those watching can’t have guessed that Antoine Frisch is Irish-qualified.

Last week, the 25-year-old was announced as a surprise signing by Munster ahead of next season, the southern province and the IRFU underlining their excitement about his potential by handing him a three-year deal.

Munster beat off plenty of competition from within Ireland and the Top 14 to secure Frisch’s services.

The Irish connection is his Dublin-born grandmother and Frisch still has family based in Tallaght. 

“I was able to go visit them a couple of times when I was younger and chat to them on the phone,” says Frisch. “I’m very proud of being Irish through my mum and grandma.”

So when the possibility of a move to Munster popped up, Frisch jumped at the opportunity.

“I was talking with John [Andress, his agent] about what was going to happen next season,” he explains.

“Damian de Allende was leaving Munster so there was an opportunity there, they wanted an extra centre even if they brought in Malakai Fekitoa. I had only signed one season with Bristol, so I was free and it happened from there.”

His mum’s family surname is Healy – no connection to Ireland prop Cian. After growing up in Dublin, Frisch’s granny moved to England and his mum was born in London, so he’s English-qualified too.

His dad hails from France and Frisch was born and bred in the town of Fontainbleau, which is just outside Paris. He was rugby-obsessed from early on, playing with Rugby Sud 77 on the banks of the Seine river and with Paris Université Club.

When he was 17, Frisch – who played out-half back then – was lured into Rugby Club Massy in the southern suburbs of Paris, the club that has produced the likes of Mathieu Bastareaud, Cameron Woki, Sekou Macalou, Jordan Joseph, and Yacouba Camara.

“Massy is a very good club,” says Frisch, whose accent is a blend of his English and French roots.

“When you’re growing up in Paris, your go-to club is always Massy because they have a great reputation for getting players through to the highest level.”

And though Frisch was dreaming of playing for France at that stage and looked up to les Bleus’ stars, including Vincent Clerc and Yannick Jauzion – Frisch’s classy offloading skills have echoes of the great Toulouse centre – he always followed Irish rugby with interest.

“I would watch Munster because they were doing really well, winning European Cups,” he recalls. “Leinster and Munster have always done well on the European stage so I watched them a lot.

“You had O’Driscoll obviously, but also O’Gara, O’Connell, O’Callaghan, Stringer – I looked up to those guys.”

Frisch remains qualified to play for France, England, and Ireland right now but the three-year deal with Munster makes it obvious where his best bet lies now. 

“With my dad being French and me growing up there, my dream was to play for France back then, but I knew that with my mum’s family being Irish, I was always really proud of being Irish,” says Frisch.

“I knew there were a few possibilities but I’m not there yet. I need to keep focusing on my games and if it’s meant to happen, it will happen.”

After finishing school, Frisch headed off to the UK in 2015 to study and play rugby at Loughborough University but it didn’t suit him. All he wanted was pro rugby and he was back in France within a year to join Top 14 club Stade Français.

It was a step up in the rugby world but proved to be a frustrating couple of seasons for him from the ages of 19 to 21 as he found himself limited to playing with the espoirs [U23] team.

“I was still a fly-half at the time and the club had the likes of Morné Steyn and Jules Plisson, so there wasn’t much game time.”

In 2017, Frisch dropped down to the Fédérale 1 – France’s third-tier semi-professional division at that time – to join Tarbes in the southwest of France. It was exactly what Frisch needed as he played nearly every weekend before returning to Massy for the 2019/20 season.

“That was the main thing – just to play and keep developing,” he says of his experiences in the school of hard knocks that is Fédérale rugby.

“It’s great because it’s men’s rugby, there are players with way more experience than you. It’s slower than some pro rugby but it’s a really good standard. It’s real rugby and a big difference to those espoirs games with younger boys my own age.”

The move to Tarbes also saw Frisch move to inside centre for the first time. They had an injury to their usual starter at 12 and Frisch was happy to shift out. It felt natural straight away and he reckons he should have made the move earlier in hindsight.

His background as an out-half is obvious in Frisch’s play now. While he’s a big threat on the ball himself, he’s also very comfortable as a second distributor in the backline.

“It helps, definitely. I worked a lot on my kicking growing up, so that’s good.

“Also, it helps to identify quickly where the space is and that’s a big one – just being the 10′s eyes in phase play. Also organising the guys around you, getting that connection and understanding the game tactically, getting into the right areas of the field.”

In 2020, the rapidly-improving Frisch was snapped up by Rouen in the Pro D2, France’s second tier, and had a superb season there.

“It was my first real shot at pro level,” says Frisch. “I played with some very close friends that I had grown up with. There was also the Irish guys, Peter Lydon and Shane O’Leary, and it was great to play with them.

“I’ve never seen a kicker like Peter, he’s amazing with the boot and I don’t know why he’s not playing in Ireland, to be honest. Who knows, he might get an opportunity to come back.”

Rouen coach Richard Hill, the former England scrum-half, had previously coached Bristol and he was the link to Pat Lam’s side, who brought Frisch in under the radar last summer.

Frisch has understandably had a steep learning curve in Bristol but feels his reading of the game has come on hugely. His performances in 10 Premiership appearances have been excellent and the centre got a Champions Cup debut off the bench against Stade Français in January.

Unfortunately, he won’t play for the Bears again before leaving this summer. A niggling shoulder injury required a minor tidy-up operation but Frisch is set to be fit and firing by the time pre-season rolls around.

He visited Limerick for the first time a few weeks ago and although Munster’s high performance centre was pretty much empty on a day off for the players, Frisch met some of the province’s staff and was impressed with the facilities.

And then there was the stadium.

“It was unreal to see Thomond Park because it’s an amazing place with a lot of history,” says Frisch.

“There have been amazing games played there and it was unreal to see it in person after seeing it on TV when I was growing up.”

Originally published at 0900