Ex-Ireland player’s ‘bad news’ for Sam Prendergast and the area of the game that would be a ‘shame’ for New Zealand to dominate
Sam Prendergast was recalled as the Ireland No.10 last Saturday with Jeremy Loughman, inset, named as one of their subs
Former Ireland out-half Ian Madigan wasn’t overly enthused by the performance of Sam Prendergast in Sydney last Saturday, even though the No.10 successfully kicked the winning points for Andy Farrell’s team.
Having been unceremoniously dumped by the side a couple of rounds into this year’s Six Nations and going on to give up the starting role at Leinster in their latest run to the Investec Champions Cup final, Prendergast was recalled as the starting Ireland out-half against Australia.
He had enjoyed an improved finish to the club season, getting back into Leo Cullen’s team and helping them to their latest United Rugby Championship title win, and the absence of the injured Jack Crowley has since restored him to the Ireland 10 jersey.
Prendergast went on to convert four of Ireland’s five tries against the Wallabies, including crucially adding the all-important extras to Thomas Clarkson’s 77th minute to edge his team into their 33-31 lead. However, despite kudos for making that high-pressure kick, Madigan took Prendergast to task for several missed tackles during the Nations Championship opener.
“He slipped off too many tackles…”
“I thought some of the frailties that Sam has shown throughout the season were shown up again,” he said on the Indo Sport podcast reviewing last weekend’s rugby action. “I didn’t think it was a good performance from him defensively.
“I thought he slipped off too many tackles, and some of those tackles that he is slipping off, it’s one thing missing a tackle; it’s how you miss it that is really important. You can miss a tackle but get significant purchase on the attacking player so that players can come in and help you.
“If you get very little on them, there is only so much help you can do and the Irish system gets exposed more because a lot of these tackles missed on the gain line as opposed to the Leinster system, they are missed 10 metres in front of the gain line, and you have got players scrambling across.”
Switching to Prendergast’s kicking performance, Madigan added: “I thought line kicking was a strong part of his game. He hung in there well, and they played the territory game pretty well in the second half without it being amazing.
“He is a good kicker of the ball but the first two kicks of the game he doesn’t get them aerially accurate enough for me. I was critical of Crowley when that happened against New Zealand in the first Test in November.
“It’s a really important part of the game, both getting it aerially accurately but also starting a game well. We are becoming more aligned on that, but yet we seem to always start the November series or Six Nations (with poor kicks); that’s becoming a bit of a trend.
“So yeah, look, I wouldn’t say he [Prendergast] has made that jersey his own. Has he closed the gap on Crowley? Possibly a little bit. The kick at the end, that’s a tricky little kick. You’re on the 15-metre line. It’s one of those you are expected to get, but the kick needs to be struck well.
“Maybe a year ago he doesn’t get that one because you could see him missing both sides of the post, but it was confidently struck whereas on the flip side with (Ben) Donaldson (for Australia), he has got a big swinging draw, and his kicks were on the right-hand side.
“He pulls the first one and then tries to correct it on the second one with a big push. I don’t think there was loads of confidence he was going to drain either of those two.”
Another talking point about Prendergast’s display for Ireland was the 27th-minute pass he gave to Hugo Keenan in the Australian half which was picked off by Max Jorgensen and resulted in a try for Ryan Lonergan. “He could also get a bit of help from Hugo,” reckoned Madigan. “Hugo could have given him a shout. Hugo sticks to his line, and you have got to have better awareness that this passage of play isn’t going as planned; we need to cut our cloth.
“He has got to read that this pass could be intercepted and jam in and take Jorgensen, or give Prendergast a shout to hold onto the ball. If a gap opens up, Prendergast does actually have speed. It’s not this rapid acceleration that you see with (New Zealand’s) Ruben Love at the weekend…
“But what he wouldn’t have is the footwork to get out of those tight exchanges so you are not hit hard and part of that is he is very tall so your feet are wider apart, your centre of gravity is higher up; that’s always going to be a challenge for him, the same way it is for him defensively when you get him moving laterally, it’s not going to be the strongest because of his height.
“But yeah, there is probably going to be two or three occasions in each game where he is going to just have to cut his cloth and go ‘not on here’, work really hard on the ground and give the team another opportunity as opposed to it resulting in the ball ending up on the ground or getting intercepted.
“Prendergast’s strengths lie where he puts (Nick) Timoney through; he is drawing defenders, he pumps long, he plays short, creates dog legs in defence. If you have a play set up where you are saying, look, Sam, this could potentially open up for you, let’s get you up to speed on this one or let’s get you turning the corner harder and if they don’t come to you, take that space.
“That’s very different to him going into a play thinking what option am I going to pick, what passing option am I going to pick and then realising they are all shut down and then he has got to go to a carry game, but he has got no momentum in the carry – that’s bad news for him.”
With Australia narrowly beaten, Ireland will next play Japan in Newcastle on Saturday. They are expected to comfortably defeat Eddie Jones’ team, so the bigger focus for the remainder of their southern hemisphere trip is the July 18 meeting with the All Blacks in Auckland.
Ireland had set-piece issues against the Wallabies and while the lineout can be quickly polished up, Madigan has concerns about the scrum and suggested it would be a shame if that facet of the game allowed New Zealand to break away from them and win.
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Ireland started versus Australia with Tom O’Toole and Tadhg Furlong propping, with Jeremy Loughman and Thomas Clarkson covering from the bench. Loughman suffered a concussion, though, during his cameo and although the uncapped Billy Bohan is primed to step up versus Japan, anxiety exists about the reliability of the scrum against New Zealand.
“One point I would say is I’m surprised off the back of Loughman’s concussion that they haven’t brought out another loosehead prop,” said Madigan. “The likes of (Michael) Milne has been in and out of Irish squads and then the real standout one for me, if you are worried about your scrum, Jerry Cahir, he pins the scrum so well, just bring him out and have a look at him.
“For the tour that’s in it, keep building your depth. I’m not overly concerned with how it is going to play out against Japan, but against New Zealand it would be a shame for that to be a real talking point and for the game to get away from us with the scrum.”
