{"id":281967,"date":"2025-11-13T15:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/281967\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T15:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T15:01:10","slug":"prendergast-given-ireland-10-shirt-as-lion-returns-in-unfamiliar-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/281967\/","title":{"rendered":"Prendergast given Ireland 10 shirt as Lion returns in unfamiliar role"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sam Prendergast will start at fly-half for Ireland<\/a> on Saturday when they welcome Australia<\/a> to the Aviva Stadium.<\/p>\n

The Leinster<\/a> playmaker has been preferred to Jack Crowley<\/a> on this occasion by Andy Farrell, with the Munster<\/a> star starting on the bench.<\/p>\n

Farrell has made plenty of changes from the team that triumphed over Japan<\/a> last week 41-10.<\/p>\n

The British & Irish Lions<\/a> boss has welcomed back one of his tourists from the summer, Mack Hansen<\/a>, who missed the opening two matches of the Quilter Nations Series through injury.<\/p>\n

With Hugo Keenan<\/a> and Jamie Osborne<\/a> out, Hansen will start in his more unfamiliar role of full-back \u2013 his first Test start there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ireland <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Australia <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There have been a total of nine changes from the side that triumphed over Eddie Jones\u2019 Brave Blossoms last week. The six players who will start again are the second-row pairing of James Ryan<\/a> and Tadhg Beirne<\/a>, flanker Ryan Baird<\/a>, captain Caelan Doris<\/a>, centre Robbie Henshaw<\/a> and wing Tommy O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n

Of those six, Henshaw will shift to outside centre this week, while Doris will move to the flank to accommodate Jack Conan<\/a> at No.8.<\/p>\n

Speaking ahead of the match, Farrell said: \u201cThere\u2019s great respect and familiarity between Ireland and Australia and Saturday is the latest renewal in a series of matches which have been pretty evenly balanced over the last number of years. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a good buzz around training this week and the players are excited about the challenge that awaits. For us it\u2019s about putting in an 80-plus minute performance and to try and implement our gameplan in front of what we know will be a vocal home support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ireland XV
15. Mack Hansen<\/a> (Corinthians\/Connacht)(28)
14. Tommy O\u2019Brien (Blackrock College\/Leinster)(4)
13. Robbie Henshaw (Buccaneers\/Leinster)(83)
12. Stuart McCloskey<\/a> (Bangor\/Ulster)(23)
11. James Lowe<\/a> (Leinster)(41)
10. Sam Prendergast<\/a> (Lansdowne\/Leinster)(11)
9. Jamison Gibson-Park<\/a> (Leinster)(44)
1. Paddy McCarthy<\/a> (Dublin University\/Leinster)(2)
2. Dan Sheehan<\/a> (Lansdowne\/Leinster)(33)
3. Tadhg Furlong<\/a> (Clontarf\/Leinster)(80)
4. James Ryan (UCD\/Leinster)(74)
5. Tadhg Beirne<\/a> (Lansdowne\/Munster)(63)
6. Ryan Baird<\/a> (Dublin University\/Leinster)(31)
7. Caelan Doris<\/a> (St Mary\u2019s College\/Leinster)(53)(captain)
8. Jack Conan (Old Belvedere\/Leinster)(53)<\/p>\n

Replacements
16. R\u00f3nan Kelleher (Lansdowne\/Leinster)(41)
17. Andrew Porter<\/a> (UCD\/Leinster)(77)
18. Thomas Clarkson<\/a> (Blackrock College\/Leinster)(9)
19. Nick Timoney<\/a> (Banbridge\/Ulster)(5)
20. Cian Prendergast<\/a> (UCD\/Connacht)(6)
21. Craig Casey<\/a> (Shannon\/Munster)(22)
22. Jack Crowley (Cork Constitution\/Munster)(28)
23. Bundee Aki<\/a> (Galwegians\/Connacht)(66)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Prendergast will start at fly-half for Ireland on Saturday when they welcome Australia to the Aviva Stadium.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281968,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-281967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}