Head coach Andy Farrell criticised \u201ckeyboard warriors\u201d as he vehemently denied suggestions some Ireland fans cheered when Sam Prendergast was replaced during Saturday\u2019s 20-13 Guinness Six Nations win over Italy.<\/p>\n
Fly-half Prendergast endured a difficult outing against the Azzurri in Dublin, including missing two straightforward conversions.<\/p>\n
There were groans from the Aviva Stadium crowd when those kicks sailed wide followed by a noticeable roar when the 23-year-old Leinster playmaker was replaced by Munster\u2019s Jack Crowley in the 56th minute.<\/p>\n
Farrell, who has a major decision to make at 10 for next weekend\u2019s visit to England, insisted the cheering was in support of 26-year-old Crowley.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I don\u2019t believe that,\u201d he replied when asked about supporters potentially celebrating Prendergast\u2019s withdrawal.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you\u2019re making that up, 100 per cent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI heard the cheer for Jack. That\u2019s for Jack. Jack\u2019s a good lad He\u2019s a good player. And Munster supporters and Irish supporters are allowed to cheer that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t need to make it out to be something it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking of Prendergast\u2019s wayward conversion attempts, former dual-code international Farrell said: \u201cI\u2019ve missed worse than that, and I\u2019ve had worse groans than that, believe me. Everyone is allowed to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019d be frustrated with bits (of his performance).\u201d<\/p>\n
Ireland\u2019s fly-half battle has sparked plenty of debate and caused a split among provincial lines, reminiscent of the rivalry between Ronan O\u2019Gara and Johnny Sexton.<\/p>\n
Crowley looked set to be the long-term successor to the retired Sexton following the 2023 World Cup before Prendergast made his Test debut aged 21 in the autumn of 2024.<\/p>\n
Farrell said: \u201cI might be talking out of school here, but what\u2019s gone on over the last year, especially with the keyboard warriors, I think people need to ask themselves sometimes, \u2018Are we Irish?\u2019 \u2018Do we want people to do well or not?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it can be tough for these kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve seen it toing and froing with both of them, and both of them are strong characters.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes a lot to break kids like that. But I\u2019ve seen it affect people. So the keyboard warriors on Twitter, or whatever you call it now, need to cop on and try and help these kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s damaging. We need to back them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Crowley came on with the score level at 10-10 and help steadied the ship, slotting a conversion and a penalty.<\/p>\n
However, he failed to find touch with a late penalty as Ireland missed out on a bonus point.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s gutted about the kick into the corner obviously but he did a lot more good for us than harm and he can proud of his performance,\u201d said Farrell.<\/p>\n
Ireland returned to winning ways courtesy of the unconvincing success following a 36-14 round-one defeat to France in Paris.<\/p>\n
Farrell is content for his injury-hit team to be written off against an England side seeking a response to a Calcutta Cup loss to Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could say we have nothing to lose, but we do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to win. We want to play better. We want to learn from a big-game experience away from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cParis is a tough ask and Twickenham is a similar type of task so we need to grow through that experience and see what we can do with it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve no doubt people are going to write us off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Head coach Andy Farrell criticised \u201ckeyboard warriors\u201d as he vehemently denied suggestions some Ireland fans cheered when Sam…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-300647","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=300647"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300647\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}