{"id":564075,"date":"2026-07-23T10:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564075\/"},"modified":"2026-07-23T10:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-23T10:16:08","slug":"brian-odriscoll-weighs-into-ireland-10-debate-after-sam-prendergasts-mixed-bag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/564075\/","title":{"rendered":"Brian O’Driscoll weighs into Ireland 10 debate after Sam Prendergast’s ‘mixed bag’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian O\u2019Driscoll insists Jack Crowley\u2019s Ireland<\/a> hopes have not been harmed by his absence in the Nations Championship after Sam Prendergast failed to grasp his opportunity.<\/p>\n

In a battle which has been going on for the best part of the last two years, Prendergast was handed the reins for the mid-year Tests after his rival was forced to miss the games with the Wallabies, Japan and All Blacks.<\/p>\n

An \u2018obscure\u2019 blood vessel injury in the back of Crowley\u2019s leg has kept him on the sidelines since mid-April after he ended the Six Nations as Ireland\u2019s<\/a> first choice 10.<\/p>\n

That afforded Prendergast<\/a> and Ciaran Frawley a chance to stake their claim for the shirt this month, but neither impressed over the three games.<\/p>\n

Struggles against the All Blacks<\/p>\n

The former particularly struggled against the All Blacks, despite the odd flash of brilliance, with the 23-year-old making a number of errors in that 40-21 defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cPrendergast had a real mixed bag in truth. A couple of times we had them in a bit of trouble and he threw passes on the ground or into touch and wasn\u2019t quite accurate,\u201d O\u2019Driscoll<\/a> told Off The Ball.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then as well he picks a great pass for Hugo Keenan\u2019s try and there\u2019s lots of other good moments as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

State of the Nation: \u2018Clock turns back\u2019 to last November for Andy Farrell as \u2018cosiness\u2019 of the Ireland set-up leads to \u2018sobering conclusion\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

Prendergast\u2019s Achilles heel has been his defence and, as a result, teams have started to target him more and more.<\/p>\n

The All Blacks were no different and the fly-half was forced to make a staggering 22 tackle attempts, six of which he missed.<\/p>\n

Although the playmaker was not massively exposed in that area last weekend, with the show\u2019s host suggesting he was \u201ca little better in defence\u201d, O\u2019Driscoll still sees it as a significant weakness.<\/p>\n

Jack Crowley remains Ireland\u2019s first choice 10<\/p>\n

\u201cI was looking at it and every time [Quinn] Tupaea got the ball and saw that it was him in front of him, it was like one decision, so it was a little like, if you make your bed in the past around having that vulnerability, you\u2019re going to continue to be that target.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t see that changing anytime soon because I know that he\u2019s not going to ever monster [opponents]. We just want him to be a proficient tackler, but I think he will be a target going forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cBig guys like Tupaea, [Anton] Lienert-Brown and Jordie Barrett, if they see him, particularly with the intel of Jordie Barrett [from his time at Leinster], any time he feels isolated or there\u2019s a one-on-one, take it on because there are off-loads to be had post-contact or a potential line break yourself.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s putting himself into the collision more but I still think we\u2019ve a little bit of a way to go and we\u2019re talking it\u2019s night and day defensively with Jack Crowley at 10 and him at 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say anyone\u2019s stock necessarily went up \u2013 Jack\u2019s stock or Sam Prendergast\u2019s stock \u2013 but I think that Jack is still very much Ireland\u2019s number one based on the last three games.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ MORE: All Blacks great blasts Ireland as a \u2018pack of whingers\u2019 who should stop \u2018blaming everyone else\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brian O\u2019Driscoll insists Jack Crowley\u2019s Ireland hopes have not been harmed by his absence in the Nations Championship…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[55315,1100,61,3859,60,86133,43],"class_list":["post-564075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-brian-o","tag-home-page","tag-ie","tag-internationals","tag-ireland","tag-nations-championship","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564075","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=564075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}