With plenty of noise online about who should wear Ireland’s No.10 jersey heading into the final Quilter Nations Series Test, Sam Prendergast says he and Jack Crowley have made a conscious decision to keep things positive, and avoid getting dragged into the debate around their ongoing selection rotation.
The Leinster out-half made it clear that both players see negativity as counter-productive while Andy Farrell prepares to name his team for Saturday’s clash with Australia.
Crowley has started the first two November Tests, the defeat to New Zealand in Chicago and the win over Japan, with Sam Prendergast coming off the bench on both occasions. The two also split starts during the summer tour.
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For Sam Prendergast, maintaining the right mindset matters far more than any jersey number.
If either of us are getting bogged down by the rotation over the last year, I suppose it’s selfish, as in we’d both say that would be we’re being selfish. I think we both agree that it’s important we both stay positive and both just try to contribute to the team as best as we can.
Like I thought Jack has played very well the first two games and he started the season really well as well. We both get along very well and we both kind of share the same ambitions, so it’s not that hard to get on.
I think if either of us are getting bogged down about that kind of rotation, it’s quite a selfish thing to do.
Sam Prendergast was also asked whether a certain degree of selfishness might actually be beneficial for a Test out-half chasing an edge. He agreed, but only to a point.
Yeah, I suppose it is, but in terms of if you’re getting bogged down by it, it is impacting your day-to-day, and impacting your day-to-day is probably stopping you from getting better as a player, so that’s what I’d probably answer to that one.
Like you always want to start and I think there’s probably five or six fly-halves in Ireland who want to start those games and yeah, it can be frustrating, but it’s just about not letting it eat you up because all you can really do is stay positive, try to improve every day and if you keep doing that, then you hope the big picture things take care of themselves.
The 22-year-old gave a frank review of his own bench contributions this month, disappointed with his impact in Chicago, encouraged by how the Japan game opened up late on, and happy that Ireland’s “finishers” were able to capitalise.
It’s always good fun coming back into the camp. The couple of weeks we spent over in Chicago were good, it was just disappointing as a team we couldn’t get the performance… you can’t get too bogged down with that.
And then last week… I think we did a lot of hard work in the first half… that hard work paid off in the second half.
Personally, probably a bit disappointed with the first game coming off the bench… And then last week, happy enough… it allowed for the game to be a bit more open, which probably made life easier for us substitutions.
Andy Farrell is expected to name his starting XV at lunchtime today, but if there’s tension around the Crowley-Prendergast rivalry outside the camp, the man himself insists there’s none within it.
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