{"id":380386,"date":"2026-04-03T18:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/380386\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:32:11","slug":"we-have-a-very-competitive-group-its-harrys-game-at-leinster-as-leo-cullen-explains-sam-prendergast-demotion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/380386\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We have a very competitive group\u2019 \u2013 It\u2019s Harry\u2019s game at Leinster as Leo Cullen explains Sam Prendergast demotion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Out-half who started Six Nations as first-choice but ended it outside squad has now suffered same fate with the Blues\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Harry Byrne during a Leinster Rugby squad training session at Rosemount in UCD, Dublin. Photo by Ben McShane\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Sports3410973.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Harry Byrne during a Leinster Rugby squad training session at Rosemount in UCD, Dublin. Photo by Ben McShane\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Leo Cullen has stressed that the decision to omit Sam Prendergast from the squad that faces Edinburgh in Sunday\u2019s round of 16 (Lansdowne Road, 5.30pm) is just \u201cone selection.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Prendergast, who began the Six Nations as Ireland\u2019s first-choice out-half but ended it outside the match-day 23, has now suffered the same fate at provincial level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Out-half who started Six Nations as first-choice but ended it outside squad has now suffered same fate with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380387,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[8495,42,11287,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-380386","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-david-kelly","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-leinster-rugby","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380386","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=380386"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380386\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}