\u201cIt\u2019s a pretty special tour to go on. I haven\u2019t been down there to Australia or New Zealand,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s fairly exciting with the fixtures that are there and I feel like a lot of the provinces were playing very well towards the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cResults maybe didn\u2019t go certain team\u2019s ways but there was a lot of lads playing good rugby. It\u2019s quite an exciting team to be involved in.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prendergast has endured a brutally difficult season in which he lost his place as first-choice ten with both club and country. And not just his starting place. Both Leinster and Ireland saw fit to use Ciaran Frawley on the bench ahead of him too.<\/p>\n
Put it like that and his effort three days ago was all the more impressive having been parachuted back in to the province\u2019s plans for the URC run-in, but Prendergast was composed enough to point out that it hadn\u2019t all been gravy.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery game is different. There are bits I was happy with and I still made loads of errors. The lads did such a brilliant job up front with the amount of injuries up there and how well they played in terms of scrum and lineout defence.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey didn\u2019t really give the Bulls much and then how the lads inside and outside me played as well. The platform I was given makes it all the easier.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Bulls\u2019](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/5127630_3_articleinline_95039_2982537.jpg\" "\\"Bulls\u2019")
Bulls\u2019 Canan Moodie is tackled by Sam Prendergast of Leinster during the URC final. Pic:\u00a0\u00a9INPHO\/Ben Brady<\/p>\n
Maybe the highlight was his successful chase back to deny Stravino Jacobs a certain try by diving at the winger\u2019s feet just as the South African was poised to kick the loose ball through the last couple of metres on a break away.<\/p>\n
That was early enough in the game, just midway through the first-half, and with Leinster\u2019s lead only 12 points at that stage. There were other tackles of note too. The trick now is to stitch all this together week after week going forward.<\/p>\n
Either way, his turnaround in recent weeks has been incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just [about] constantly trying to get better and play better. I reckon I played a better game [on Friday] than last year\u2019s final and that\u2019s probably the end goal, isn\u2019t it? You want to keep progressing as the years go on and that\u2019s what I am chasing down.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were obviously parts of the season where I wasn\u2019t too happy with how I was playing and I wasn\u2019t getting selected because of that, which is just the nature of it. It\u2019s nice to be able to put out on the pitch stuff that I am working hard at and getting better at.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Prendergast\u2019s flip in fortunes is just another reminder as to how quickly things can change. Build on this Down Under this next month and it will renew the debate over who is the best man to lead Ireland back to Oz for next year\u2019s World Cup.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s tough on Crowley who reacted brilliantly to adversity himself in regaining the initiative during the last Six Nations. Like him, Prendergast will at least come away from this campaign with a greater understanding of what\u2019s required and how to go about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was probably very different compared to last season in terms of how it started over in South Africa and getting thumped by the Stormers,\u201d said Prendergast. \u201cThere was a tough run of fixtures and we lost a run of games early.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I have a lot of good people around me in terms of coaches and a lot of the leaders within Leinster and Ireland are very good to listen to. They would have been a huge help through some of those performances that I wasn\u2019t playing as I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Prendergast is ready to break new ground with Ireland after wrapping up a difficult spell with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-512120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512120","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=512120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}