THE NEVER-ENDING chat around Ireland’s depth at out-half saw another name enter the conversation over the back-end of the season just gone, with Sam Prendergast’s impressive displays for the Ireland U20s and Leinster ensuring the 20-year-old became the latest highly-promising young 10 to see his name hit the headlines.
Considering he only has two senior appearances for Leinster to his name, Prendergast for the World Cup always seemed a stretch, so it was no real surprise to see the Kildare native left out of Andy Farrell’s 42-player World Cup training squad.
However, that doesn’t mean Prendergast will be sitting idle for the summer. Instead, the out-half will head to South Africa with the Ireland U20s next week as the U20 World Championships returns for the first time since 2019.
Ireland U20s head coach Richie Murphy is confident it’s the perfect stage for Prendergast to continue his development.
“Absolutely. Sam has had an incredible 12 months,” Murphy said.
“He came on the radar this time last year when we were in the summer series, he stepped up and kicked the goal against England to win the game.
He has built on the back of that until now. Obviously he has played for the Leinster senior team over the last while and this is probably the next natural step, to see him on a world stage against all the best players at his age group, and see where he stands.
“It’s not only Sam. You look right throughout our squad, we have got world-class players in many positions.
“Sam is very aware, he is very much a team man. He’s more interested in how the team goes rather than looking at individual stuff for himself.”
Prendergast heads into the tournament as Ireland’s first-choice 10, with Murphy picking a settled 30-player squad on the back of the brilliant Grand Slam success earlier this year. The Ireland boss has been able to retain 26 players from the Six Nations group, and believes that continuity can be key as a squad light on gametime look to build on their impressive exploits earlier this year.
“We need to be our biggest critic in relation to how we get better and how we move our game forward,” Murphy continued.
“I think that has been the focus for us as coaches and as a team. How do we make sure that when we come back from the World Cup that we are in a better place than we were in the Six Nations?
That’s been our focus. It hasn’t really been on what other teams say about us. It’s about looking at the weaknesses we showed in the Six Nations and tightening up those areas.
“Going to a World Cup, we know we can play rugby and we are tough to beat. It’s going to be a new experience. I think only four of our 30-man squad that is going there have been in South Africa, and only three have played down there.”
Ireland open their campaign against England on 24 June, before games against Australia (29 June) and Fiji (4 July) and two play-off fixtures.
It’s a tight schedule, and Murphy feels that correctly managing the squad – which includes 17 forwards and 13 backs – will be key.
“We’re probably lucky that we have a number, four or five guys can play in different positions in the back three. We have a centre who can play on the wing, we’ve a 10 who can play fullback and who has also played in the centre for us last year.
“That gives us a little bit of versatility and I think what we’ve done is we’ve gone to try to pick what we feel are the best rugby players in order and then we’ll fit them in around our team to make it the best fit for us.”
One player who hasn’t made the cut is Waterford-born Ike Anagu, who is on the books at La Rochelle in France.
“I have talked to Ike, talked to Ike a couple of weeks back and I watched some of his footage,” Murphy added.
“Ike, it’s a very difficult thing because he’s got an Espoirs league that he’s playing in which means he’s not available for all our camps, he’s only available in the international windows. We have a certain way of playing so it’s hard for him to just drop in and drop out, you know what I mean? So that was kind of one of the sort of drawbacks of Ike.
“We had him for a number of weeks leading into the Six Nations because they weren’t playing games so we thought we could get him to a level, but then the following week he couldn’t make training because he had an Espoirs game and then that put them under pressure with the guys that are in the group.”
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