Ireland assistant reveals ‘the big thing’ he has noticed so far with Paul O’Connell’s inexperienced squad
Interim Ireland boss Paul O'Connell
Mike Prendergast has given his verdict on the inexperienced Ireland squad Paul O’Connell has assembled in Dublin ahead of their two-match tour to Georgia and Portugal.
Unlike Six Nations rivals France and England, who are heading to the southern hemisphere for respective matches against New Zealand and Argentina, the Irish have a lower-key summer planned versus two Rugby Europe Championship sides.
The trip to Tbilisi and Lisbon will test their strength-in-depth as head coach Andy Farrell has taken a plethora of assistant coaches and 16 Ireland Test players with him on the British and Irish Lions tour to Australia.
That situation resulted in forwards coach O’Connell getting promoted to the role of interim Ireland boss and he named a squad of 32 on June 4 that contains 11 uncapped players. That selection is now hard at it in training before they fly out for their July 5 match away to Georgia.
Helping O’Connell get the squad up to speed is Munster assistant Mike Prendergast, his former provincial teammate. They previously coached together at Stade Francais under Heyneke Meyer in 2018/19. Prendergast has now revealed his first impression about working with O’Connell’s rookie Ireland selection.
“You can hear the little micro chats going on…”
“The big thing I have noticed is they are willing to help each other, guys in the same position, some guys are more familiar with stuff than others and you can hear the little micro chats going on with each other and being really encouraging,” he enthused.
“We have come together as a squad, as a staff, we have a goal to go and win two games and that is what we want to do. Everyone realises we have to pull together; it’s a squad effort.
“Ideally, we will want everybody playing over the next few weeks and the best way of putting your best foot forward is connecting together and having one goal at the end of it and that’s game by game, that’s getting our two performances and results after that.”
Ireland will tour with Craig Casey chosen as a first-time Test captain. Having worked with the scrum-half for a number of years at Munster, Prendergast couldn’t find fault in O’Connell’s choice to lead the side. “With Munster, he [Casey] would be one of our leaders,” explained the assistant coach.
“He is full of energy, a student of the game so his leadership, guys will listen because he is an incredibly diligent guy. He is all over his stuff and you always want people to follow that. He hasn’t been any different than what he would be down in Munster.
“Through the week and next week that will ramp up from his point of view, I would imagine, but he brings a real good calmness to people as well. It’s great to have him in the squad and as a captain. He has all the leadership qualities that you ask for from a person.”
