It seems in Ireland that even when there is an established outhalf, the question never ceases as to who the next one is going to be.
With Leinster being the leading team, the most competitive environment and having the most international players, the argument could be made that the Leinster outhalf has the best chance of becoming the Irish outhalf.
Clearly Munster’s Jack Crowley bucks that notion. But playing alongside the Irish scrumhalf, two Irish centres, the Irish fullback and an Irish left wing does have an upside.
Sam Prendergast can’t avoid being compared to other players. It comes with the job of playmaker. There is Crowley, Ross and Harry Byrne, Ciarán Frawley, even Johnny Sexton. Inevitably comparisons will be made.
“Yeah. Obviously everything Johnny has achieved is inspiring. I think everyone’s reading his book at the moment,” says Prendergast like a disciple of Marx talking about Das Kapital.
Eyes will be on Prendergast on Saturday in the Aviva Stadium. Critical eyes, envious eyes, curious eyes. The former Newbridge outhalf, the only member of Simon Easterby’s side who started all three games in the Emerging Ireland team that toured South Africa last summer, is 21 years old and 6ft 4ins. That says something, but nothing about him as a player.
He retains the slim, lithe limbs of youth and the tanned fresh face and cropped hair of a schoolboy. But he is filling out, more body than a year ago and much more game to back it up.
Identified from a long way out, Prendergast is immersed in Irish rugby’s processing system and has responded well to the slow winching-up to higher levels.
Before the 2024 Six Nations Championship he, Munster’s Oli Jager and Thomas Ahern were brought into the Irish squad by Andy Farrell. It was a gentle initiation, a glimpse into camp life, into a competitive fraternity that bites back and pushes hard against anyone that threatens. Leinster is much the same.
“I think it’s very good in terms of how competitive it is,” he says of life in Leinster. “It probably depends how many outhalves you consider as outhalves. But we’re all quite different players, I would say. So, you learn off each other as well and I think the competitiveness is good.
“It’s obviously frustrating [too], I don’t think anyone’s going to say anything different.”
Frawley considers himself one of those outhalves, although there could be pushback there from the coaching staff, who see his versatility as an asset to the squad. But sticking with Leinster rather than following his big brother Cian to Connacht suggests that Prendergast doesn’t fear a fight for game time in a crowded field.
“Did I give it [Connacht] thought? I did, yeah. Being honest, I did, and it was selfish. But it’s also from a team point of view. All I was thinking was how do I become the Leinster number 10? I only want to play for Leinster and that’s where I want to achieve things. But it’s ‘how do I become the Leinster number 10?’
“And [while] giving the thought to going somewhere else, where maybe I’ll get more game time, I ended up not thinking that was the best decision. But I did give it thought, because all I’m thinking about is how I can play more and how there’s always so much room to get better. Just how you can do that quicker and quicker.
“So, eventually I decided this is the place. I never had to think about whether this was the place for me. It was just how do I get to being the number one here. That’s a constant battle because there’s always people ahead of you and there’s always people coming up behind you.”
This week the double World Cup winner with the Springboks, RG Snyman, had Prendergast in his radar. “I look at guys like Sam, the things they can do with the ball in training and stuff, it’s crazy.”
Leinster senior coach Jacques Nienaber too: “What I’ve seen with Sam, I think everybody knows that he had a variety of skill sets and a good rugby brain on him. The main thing is that Sam must get experience to be confident playing at that level but also an experience to be confident running a team.”
Being named on Farrell’s squad this week for the November series of matches should make “big rugby” come soon. When Prendergast looks at the French team that beat Ireland in the 2023 Under-20 World Cup final in which he played, he sees that four or five have graduated into the senior French side.
He should be the first of his Irish cohort to do the same and Saturday in the Aviva Petri dish presents the kind of platform that allows fans to see how many of the boxes he ticks in kicking range, poise, threat, defence, passing, decision making and game presence. In short, whether he can own the position.
For a kid who “wasn’t hugely into rugby” until third year in school, Prendergast has managed to become the talked-about player, the fresh face anointed by Farrell to compete with Frawley and Crowley throughout November.
Do you enjoy stepping up and leading the team, Prendergast was asked this week. “Yeah, I do,” he shot back, reclining in the chair, his long levers consuming space, and knowing that any other answer would have been the wrong one.
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