'He would remind you a little bit of Johnny Sexton, he has the same kind of drive' - High praise for Prendergast 

Leinster’s latest rising academy star earned the highest praise possible for an Irish number 10.

STAR IN THE MAKING: Sam Prendergast of Ireland celebrates with assistant coach Mark Sexton after the U20 Six Nations Rugby Championship match between Ireland and France at Musgrave Park. Pic: Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

The rave reviews for Ireland Under-20s fly-half Sam Prendergast keep coming after his match-winning penalty to sink France at the death in Cork on Friday night with head coach Richie Murphy comparing him to none other than Johnny Sexton.

SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

SIX NATIONS CHAMPIONSHIP

Your home for the latest news, views and analysis of this year's Six Nations Championship from our award winning sports team.

A week on from the Sonny Bill Williams tweet raving at a Prendergast offload in the Six Nations opening-round victory in Wales, Leinster’s latest rising academy star, the younger brother of senior Connacht and Ireland flanker Cian Prendergast, earned the highest praise possible for an Irish number 10. 

That it came from a coach who worked as Sexton’s kicking and skills coach in national camp under both Joe Schmidt and Andy Farrell until taking over as Ireland U20 head coach in 2021 only added to the endorsement.

As to whether Prendergast, who turned 20 on Sunday, was dealing positively from the praise, Murphy said: 

“He’s grand. Don’t worry, we can keep their feet on the ground.

“Look, Sam has the potential to be a top player. He’s a big boy at probably 6ft 2ins and over 90 kilos. He would remind you a little bit of Johnny Sexton, probably has the same kind of drive as Johnny has, so that’s high praise.

“But we’ll move onto this week and don’t worry, there’s loads of things he could do better.” 

Prendergast kicked the winning points in a tense and exciting 33-31 Six Nations win at Musgrave Park as Ireland beat France in the final minutes for the second year in succession to keep their winning start to the championship intact and raise hopes of back to back titles following the 2022 Grand Slam under Murphy.

The head coach praised his fly-half’s overall performance, whose game-securing kick came moments after he had missed a longer-range effort to seal the points.

“Sam showed really good leadership, took control of the game and tried to play in the right areas and then really stepped up when we were up against it, got a couple of tackles in the in-goal area where he’s held two players up, I think, and then kicking the goal at the end is a big moment.

“In fairness to him over the last two weeks he’s brought his game to a new level.” 

In a game that saw both sides temporarily reduced to 13 men after overlapping yellow cards - France just before half-time and Ireland for six minutes midway through the second half - Murphy was relieved to see his team emerge victorious from a helter-skelter game of eight tries, the home side’s trio coming from Leinster prop Paddy McCarthy, Connacht wing Hugh Gavin and Munster No.8 Brian Gleeson.

“It’s never dull with 20s rugby. I suppose we won it, we lost it, we won it, we lost it, we won it and then we nearly lost it again. So from a coaching view we look at the things we can control and we just made too many unforced errors. We turned over the ball too easy, we didn’t deal with the restarts very well and they’re the things we need to tidy up, obviously the driving maul was a big weapon (for France).

“But character, resilience and mental toughness to stay in the fight after going down to 13 players was incredible. They’re becoming a bunch of players who just don’t want to lose, won’t give up so very proud of them for that.”