There are two pages of notes to read which sketch out Sam Prendergast’s every touch of the ball, where he got it, what he did with it, who he passed the ball to, whether he kicked it, the time.
There are official statistics for every player across 13 metrics from metres made to clean breaks and defenders beaten, yet the totality of his involvements against Fiji doesn’t really add up to the contribution he made.
A colleague quipped that Prendergast played like an outhalf on his second cap. Critical. He then added that the same player was very good. Compliment. An apparent contradiction, so how can both things be true.
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What did Prendergast, in his first start for Ireland and second cap, do that made him look both the rookie and orchestrator, that had people groaning and gasping over the things he accomplished and the misjudgements, a cross-field kick for Mack Hansen to score, several passes that stuck, others that didn’t and another international first for him, a stretch in the sinbin.
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What Andy Farrell was looking for from Prendergast is only in the coach’s head and whether he saw enough from the 21-year-old to feel another run against a better side like Australia is warranted is with him alone. What Farrell would have seen in spades, what would have been one glaring aspect of Prendergast’s play and decision making throughout the 80 minutes is that the kid has a test match temperament and that is gold.
With dominant, forward ball against a team that ultimately went down 52-17, it can be easy for the outhalf to have front. But given Prendergast’s start to the match in the first 20 minutes, an alternative personality could so easily have emerged. A different character could have reverted to playing a steady, error-free game and settled for a work-a-day performance where nothing was lost but not a lot was gained either.
[ Ireland make light work of ill-disciplined FijiOpens in new window ]
Prendergast chose not to hedge his bets on performance after a trilogy of errors in the first half that he swallowed and moved on.
A beautifully spiralled kick to the left made its test match debut from central field, but it went long by a margin of three metres. He kicked another ball to touch in goal and in possession moving into the Fijian half, momentarily dithered allowing fullback Vuate Karawalevu to catch his arm as the ball was leaving his hands and went to ground.
Before all that, in the ninth minute of the match a hellscape unfolded with Prendergast carded by referee Hollie Davidson.
A deliberate obstruction occurred after Kitione Salawa chased his own grubber kick down the right flank but was taken out. Prendergast unconvincingly made it look like a piece of awkwardness and didn’t attempt to wrap his tackle before the Scottish referee flashed yellow and the 6′4 pivot slowly made his way off the pitch like a sixth year being sent to the headmaster’s office.
The 10 minutes alone was plenty of time to stew. But Prendergast’s reaction was a beautifully measured on-the-run, cross-field kick that soared to the right for Hansen to admire before taking the score to 26-3 at half-time with Prendergast then converting the difficult sideline kick.
The bald stats for the first 40 minutes were two defenders beaten, three tackles, five carries and 19 passes.
Unfazed and within two minutes of the second half, a late, flat, hard pass to Jacob Stockdale had the Ulster winger flying into the Fijian 22. Prendergast did it again inside the Irish 22 on 48 minutes to send man of the match Bundee Aki on a gallop out of the Irish danger zone.
There was no regression and rather than hide and play cautiously, Prendergast continued to put himself into the match. While temperament is not a quantifiable thing, it is measurable in that a player has either got it or he doesn’t. He can either close the door on mistakes made or allow them to haunt him for the rest of the game.
On 58 minutes Prendergast dummied a long pass, then popped it short to Stuart McCloskey. Second’s later with his right shoulder almost touching the Fijian tackler’s chest, that patented pass again went wide shaving the noses of the opposition players pushing up and stuck with Frawley.
The substitute fullback, who had an excellent outing after Jamie Osborne left injured on 27 minutes, forward passed on that occasion to Conor Murray on the wing.
Prendergast might not have given Farrell everything that he was looking for, but he did give him a lot to consider. The trademark delivery of the outhalf he made work at test level; the nonchalance and the short, quick steps he took to measure out centimetres between him and the tackling player before the ball was released was instrumental in driving a number of Irish players into space that a conventional pass could not achieve.
The passes, even when they land, took opposition players out of play and created opportunity.
Prendergast kicked five conversions, made 39 passes and gained 11 metres. But that says little. He will have got tongues wagging, a young player with natural swagger pulling the strings and never prepared to hide.
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