Comment: Gus McCarthy steals the show for Ireland as Sam Prendergast recovers from lucky break

STOLE THE SHOW: Gus McCarthy is congratulated by team-mates Bundee Aki and Craig Casey after scoring their side's seventh try. Pic: Shauna Clinton/Sportsfile

Sam Prendergast wasn’t impressed earlier this week when it was put to him that physique might be a stumbling block on his road to Test stardom.

“A bit harsh,” said the young out-half. Twice.

Well, leniency was coming.

Saturday’s game against Fiji was less than eight minutes old when Kitione Salawa chipped a kick down the Irish left flank. Jacob Stockdale was hanging out of the flanker whose legs kept pumping until Prendergast entered the picture.

The 21-year old half turned his back, still standing upright, his limited momentum taking him directly into the path of the Fijian. There was no attempt to wrap his arms in a tackle by the Irishman and his shoulder made clear contact with the opponent’s head.

Yellow card, said referee Hollie Davidson. Her TMO Mike Adamson confirmed the decision thereafter. Prendergast was a luck, lucky boy. “What?’ was the piercing scream from Fiji captain Tevita Ikanivere when the verdict reached him.

You had to sympathise.

These are the decisions that rugby continues to get wrong too often. Nobody would wish for Prendergast’s first Test start to end so soon and in such lamentable circumstances, but there is a bigger conversation to be had here and rugby keeps mumbling its words.

This was a physical game. Craig Casey got bounced by rampaging Fijians twice in the space of a minute in the first quarter and he got man-handled over the sideline another time. He wasn’t alone in any of that.

Even Bundee Aki was carried over the chalk at one stage, not long after delivering a monstrous tackle of his own. Jamie Osborne went off injured, Ciaran Frawley took a wincer in the ribs and Casey was the victim of a dangerous late tackle too.

Through it all Ireland played with no little cohesion, not least in view of the seven changes in personnel and two positional from the XV that started eight days earlier against Argentina. They had four tries on the board by the break and another disallowed.

Prendergast was having a mixed day at first. There was a lovely line kick for the opening try and some nice short passing interspersed with a kick out on the full and a couple of passes to ground and one occasion when he was caught behind the line.

 

He’s not Superman just yet so that’s all fine and there was clear improvement as he shook the sinbinning from his system as the first-half went on and again in the second. Others drafted in for a rare or first start made serious inroads from the off.

Jacob Stockdale was lively and effective on, and coming off, that left wing. Osborne was assured on the ground and in the air. The pity was that Osborne lasted less than half-an-hour and Stockdale was gone before the 50th-minute.

Casey was pure efficiency and he claimed a try as reward for his efforts, Cormac Izuchukwu was busy on both sides of the ball, but the undoubted star among the less established core was hooker Gus McCarthy whose handling and creativity were off the charts.

Hands were being wrung only a few weeks ago with Dan Sheehan injured for the long term and both Rónan Kelleher and Rob Herring struggling to make it back for the All Blacks game. Now McCarthy has, all of a sudden, gone from subterranean to stratospheric.

This lad has still only played six times for Leinster – five of them this season. This was his debut for his country and it was his clever, if preplanned, inside pass off the back of a maul that set Caelan Doris up for the first score after five minutes.

Ten minutes later and it was McCarthy’s brilliantly executed tap penalty that deceived the Fijian line and made the space for Josh van der Flier. Better again was the instinctive offload off a maul on the half-hour that teed up Casey.

You wouldn’t have thought it could get better but, by god, it did. He had two contributions in the slick move that gave Bundee Aki the first score after the break and then, wouldn’t you know it, he claimed one himself off another maul just past the hour.

Andy Farrell wore the grin of a cat who had just had the cream in the coaches box. The only black mark for the young Leinster hooker, who ended the game playing at flanker, was a few crooked lineout throws. Those aside, this was the sort of day seven-year olds dream of.

Wonderful.