Leo Cullen: Sam Prendergast is 'adding lots of layers' to his game all the time

Cullen is hopeful that Tadhg Furlong will see some action for Ireland before the end of the Six Nations. 

ALL IN HIS STRIDE: This time last year, as Ireland played Wales in the Six Nations, Sam Prendergast was lining out for Leinster in a friendly against Saracens. Now he's Ireland's starting out-half. Pic: ©INPHO/Dan Sheridan

No-one was paying much mind when a largely young and inexperienced Leinster squad made the hop across the Irish Sea this time last year to face Saracens in a friendly filler at the StoneX Stadium.

Andy Farrell’s Ireland were playing host to Wales in the third round of the Six Nations the following day. Talk of back-to-back Championship titles was already doing the rounds and Jack Crowley was bedding himself in to the No.10 shirt.

Sam Prendergast had only just turned 21 but this was basically the start of the fast track that would see him take over from the Byrne brothers and Ciaran Frawley as Leinster’s main man, and from Crowley in the national side, before the year was out.

The visitors went down 31-19 that evening in North London but Prendergast made one delicious flat pass in the run-up to a Scott Penny try and kicked his conversions. A month later and his education continued with another friendly, this one away to Bath.

A year later and the Kildare man was starting his first senior Six Nations game against England and following it up with a first away game for his country at Test level when starting again, this time against Scotland in Murrayfield.

His performance in Edinburgh was his best yet in green and his Leinster head coach Leo Cullen, watching on from afar from Dublin, was reminded of the distance the out-half had travelled since the spring of 2024.

“The Premiership teams had to rejig some of their fixtures when a few clubs went out of business so we played Saracens and Bath that were playing, not fully-stacked teams, but pretty full-on teams.

“Sam started those two games. It’s his 22nd birthday coming up now and we had him for his 21st birthday last year, and those games were very good experiences for him. He was picking up different experiences all the time.

“He started off in round one [of the URC] this season [for Leinster] and went away on the Emerging Ireland tour. So it has been a busy period for him and he is adding lots of different layers to his game all the time. He is taking it in his stride, which is good.” 

Prendergast’s form is just one reason for Cullen to be pleased. Leinster’s large Ireland contingent went into the Championship on the back of some good form and better results, and they have continued on in the same vein.

The main debate entering the Six Nations in that sense was the perceived difference between the Leinster, Jacques Nienaber-inspired blitz defence and Ireland’s slightly less full-on variation but so far so good.

“Ireland have been pretty aggressive in terms of their linespeed,” said Cullen. “There’s lots of different components a team needs to get before you can be aggressive but overall the guys have a pretty good understanding.

“They are getting a good balance between the work that they do around the contact area. It is going to sound pretty obvious, but if the opposition has slower ball the better the defensive line you have set and the more aggressive you can be with your linespeed.

“I watched the Scotland game from TV, I haven’t had the wide view, but I went to watch the England game and watched it back since. They are two games where there has been a lot of good stuff going on, which is nice to see.” 

Cullen believes Tadhg Furlong, who has sat out the Six Nations so far, is “getting closer” to full fitness and remains hopeful that the tighthead prop will feature for Ireland before the end of the Six Nations.

“I’m not sure what [Ireland’s] plan will be, whether they’ll get him for Wales or leave him for another couple of weeks after that, but hopefully he’ll feature before the end of the Six Nations definitely, yeah."

Half-a-dozen other Ireland players will hope to make a push for game time against Wales in the Millennium Stadium in two weeks’ time by getting the nod to play with Leinster away to the Ospreys in the URC this Friday evening.

Jack Boyle, Joe McCarthy, Gus McCarthy, Ciaran Frawley, Jamie Osborne and Jimmy O’Brien all trained with their province in UCD on Monday and are in line to play against Ospreys in the URC on Friday night if not required for an Ireland mini-camp instead.

Rabah Slimani is another back on board having travelled to France’s first two Championship games as a 24th man but Jordan Larmour remains sidelined and will likely remain so until Leinster’s URC trip to South Africa towards the end of March.

RG Snyman and Jordie Barrett were given time off last week in view of their busy schedules this past year but are both back in situ for the game against the Ospreys.