Colin Sheridan: Perfect 10? Ireland out halves make Six Nations interesting

This year's Five Nations (and Wales) is intriguing, but only because of out-half conversations.

NEW BREED: Sam Prendergast at Ireland training. Pic: INPHO/Ben Brady

Oh, to be an Irish out-half, the world at your feet, the rugby public eating caviar from your heavily moisturised hands. Men want to be you. Women want their men to be you, too. Life is that good. All you must do is stay healthy, hungry, and humble and, if the rugger Gods are kind, you’ll have a career worthy of an incredibly helpful tax break at the end. The Ten is king. The quarterback. The puppet master. Nobody grows up dreaming of being a jackal, but every kid visualises a 50/22 spiralling towards the opposition 22.

It wasn’t always this way. I often think of Derek McAleese. Capped once away to France in the Parc de Princes way back in 1992. Didn’t miss a kick in a 44-12 loss. Never played for Ireland again. I’d like to think he swapped jerseys with Jean-Baptiste Lafond or Jean-Luc Sadourny at the end, because chances are things were far less exotic the following week when he was getting raked at the bottom of a ruck by an angry Shannon openside in the All-Ireland League. You wait your whole life for an Irish cap, and when it finally comes along you think surely there’ll be another. Not for Derek. Maybe the only man who truly hates Paris in the Spring.