Simulating failure in fibre-reinforced polymers (FRPs) remains a challenge in the design of lightweight composite structures. Intralaminar damage, in particular, influences the mechanical behaviour of composite laminates, such as the apparent strength and the resulting fracture modes. The present work conducts a parametric investigation on the initiation and propagation of intralaminar cracking at the micro-scale, associated with the interaction between competing micro-scale failure mechanisms: matrix cracking and fibre-matrix debonding. Representative volume elements (RVEs) within a finite element framework are employed to compare two distinct modelling strategies in the in-house solver LINKS: (i) a hybrid approach combining two complementary fracture models, a potential-based cohesive zone model (CZM) to represent the traction-separation law along discrete interfaces, and a cohesive phase-field (PF) formulation to describe matrix cracking, and (ii) a fully cohesive strategy where the cohesive zone model governs both interface decohesion and damage in the matrix. To realise these configurations, a dedicated preprocessing that automatically pre-insert cohesive elements at material interfaces is presented. Relying on this methodology, the influence of bulk and interfacial micro-scale properties on the mechanical response of FRPs is systematically analysed. To achieve this, interface strength and fracture energy are independently varied to assess the impact on the fracture response and the damping parameters, while the interface slope indicators are calibrated to reduce the artificial compliance introduced by the intrinsic cohesive elements. Results demonstrate the potential of the proposed strategies to capture crack path topology, and the apparent strength in two-dimensional composite microstructural geometries. Computational cost and sensitivity to numerical parameters are similarly examined, with the modelling strategies compared in terms of numerical robustness and predictive capacity