Ireland out-half Sam Prendergast: 'Slight? That’s a bit harsh. I’m just quite tall'

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: Ireland out-half Sam Prendergast. Pic: Billy Stickland/Inpho

Sam Prendergast is well into the closing minutes of his midweek chat with the fourth estate. He has handled himself as expertly in the confines of this meeting room in Abbotstown as he tends to do on a rugby pitch.

It's just days since his elevation to the status of Test rugby player, with 22 composed minutes off the bench at the back end of the narrow win against Argentina cementing the view that the time is already now for a man everyone knew had a big future.

The questions have been complementary, as would be expected after his latest assured step up the rugby ladder, but the acclaim for this 21-year-old phenom has still to be countered by the one area of his game that gives concern to some.

Prendergast stands 6’ 4” tall. This is a tall man but not a ‘big’ one by the game’s modern standards. His is a frame that looks light on padding, particularly in defence, and when he stands on the field of play beside men with more years and more reps in the gym.

The word ‘slight’ is used. That catches his attention.

“I dunno, I definitely think I can get better at [defence]. Slight? I think that's a bit harsh, I'm just quite tall.

"I could definitely put on a bit of size. I'm not in a huge rush to do that. I think I'm decently heavy for the position I play.

“I'm definitely trying to get better at my defence. I've been working with coaches in Leinster and Ireland coaches about it. Jack [Crowley] has defended very well over the first couple of games, Johnny was a great defender, people who I look up to like Owen Farrell, great defender.

“It's obviously a huge part of the game,” he added. “You spend half the game without the ball. You've got to be very good at it. I am really trying to get better at it. I think the slight thing is a bit harsh.” 

The Leinster out-half’s body language was interesting at that point, one foot dragging back and forth on the carpet beneath his seat like a bull poised for a charge, but his response was pitch-perfect. Any annoyance was clear but lidded. There was an edge but a calm with it.

The thought struck as he performed his media duties that this was a player who could match the likes of a Johnny Sexton or a Ronan O’Gara in terms of his gravitational pull as a speaker and that’s not to be underrated in the interlocking worlds of sports and media and the IRFU’s commercial arm.

Better again is his rapid emergence as a contender alongside Crowley for the No.10 jersey vacated by Sexton after last year’s World Cup having. The elevation up from provincial academy and U20s through Leinster’s seniors and Emerging Ireland duties to this space has taken no time at all.

The man still has only nine senior starts to his name.

The last week was “surreal”. His brother and Irish teammate Cian actually presented him with his jersey and other family members were present to drink it all in. It was emotional for him. Singing the national anthems for the first time was big too.

Sam and Cian are army boys. Mark and Ciara Prendergast were officers who met in cadet class. Active duty overseas saw the family spend 18 months in Damascus but the Leinster youngster is anything but regimented in his rugby.

Teammates have been oohing and aahing about the little tricks he does in training and, while he expresses puzzlement as to the actual plays in question, there is a background there that speaks for his points of difference.

Sam Prendergast made his Ireland debut off the bench against Argentina last weekend and will make his first start against Fiji on Saturday. Pic: Ben Brady/Inpho

His early years playing soccer and GAA gave free rein to a tendency to try things, like flicking a ball up to himself without bending down for it. No coach has tried to chisel that sort of stuff out of him. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway given his early rugby influences.

“The obvious one is probably Johnny, then Danny Cipriani, Quade Cooper, Damian McKenzie. They’re the ones that I just enjoyed watching when I was younger, the way they played. I still watch them a good bit and try to take ideas off them.” 

The admiration for Sexton is no surprise given their shared province and nationality, and the older man’s class, but every other out-half named there is a player some people cherish as mavericks and others deride as, well, mavericks.

Andy Farrell clearly likes what he sees regardless. The Ireland head coach must love the fact that Crowley and Prendergast - and maybe Ciaran Frawley - can challenge each other in the months and years to come. His advice to Prendergast last week was to just be himself.

He looks good at that.

Not everything he tried against Argentina came off – and Ireland didn’t score in that entire second-half – but there was one short pump pass to James Lowe in the Puma 22, amidst the maelstrom of bodies, that showed there and then that this was a stage within his reach.

"Sometimes I throw the longer ones but the longer one wasn't on that time. It's just Lowey had talked, his communication to me was quite clear, he had seen that space and he'd ran a great line and the defence was just coming to me.

“I like that little bit of interplay. That's what excites me a lot about rugby, those phase-play intricacies. Like, sometimes it's a long pass, sometimes it's a short pass. Every different situation has a different solution which is quite exciting.”