Ireland beat England with a powerful second-half display during the opening round of the Six Nations at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday evening.
Both Irish out-halves played their part in the victory, and unfortunately I feel it necessary to point out that you can praise one of those players without bashing the other.
Provincial bias can be evident when the Irish team is selected and it's fair to want your province’s players in the team. However, you can push the agenda and positive contributions of your preferred selection in any position without having to negatively remark on the other guy.
Sam Prendergast is an incredible talent. He’ll turn 22 during this championship, yet he’s impressively mature both on and off the pitch and has quite a confident yet relaxed manner in front of the camera.
His Six Nations championship debut wasn’t his strongest performance in the green jersey. I’m sure with his own standards he’ll reflect and appraise his own performance accordingly. His kicking is a real strength, but there were miscues scattered throughout his performance at the Aviva.
Prendergast usually puts on a spiral kicking exhibition. He didn’t connect as he normally would on two occasions, but in truth they weren’t big errors.
Prendergast was facing a fired-up English side that selected three openside flankers, effectively. His attacking ball was severely disrupted, meaning he and his Irish teammates had to solve problems throughout the game.
They were successful occasionally. A flurry of attacking threats in one passage of play led to the Marcus Smith sin-bin period and eventually led to Ireland’s first try in the second quarter of the game.
Sam was inaccurate with his conversion, a blip from his usual reliability off the kicking tee.
The third quarter of the game is when Ireland came into their own. Their subs bench had a real impact, first through Jack Conan and Dan Sheehan in particular, and later through Jack Crowley.
Prendergast used his trademark passing range to set Bundee Aki up in the corner. Aki still had a lot to do to finish the opportunity. Prendergast followed up with a longer-range penalty for his first points of the game, a sweet strike.
He left the game at 13-10, with England running out of juice and Ireland on the ascendency.
Crowley was introduced to the game and showed that he meant business. Despite one or two miscues with kicks that went slightly long, he kicked accurately otherwise, especially from the tee, and his body language was positive and progressive.
It helped that Sheehan returned to international duty in his pre-injury form. Three touches in the same passage of play led to his try scoring return. A tip-on pass in Ireland’s forward pod, a long pass to the edge for James Lowe to show his strength on the outside and the support to pick up the return pass to finish with great certainty, between two attempted tackles. He’s a freakish athlete.
Returning early from his injury is an impressive feat as it is. Sheehan showed how impactful he is and why he's considered to be one of the best in the world.
The flow of the game at that stage was in Ireland’s favour and Crowley stamped his authority on proceedings, getting his hands on the ball at every opportunity, playing others into the game around him and transferring the pressure on to England when necessary.
It was a 22-minute performance from the Cork man that will give Simon Easterby a headache ahead of their trip to Edinburgh.
The 25-year-old has a lot of experience and carries himself so professionally. His obsession with the game and his desire to continuously improve was evident in how he took to the pitch on Saturday evening.
His job was to digest the feedback that led to his place on the bench instead of being in the starting 15. He had to bring energy to the final quarter of the game, and he ticked many boxes. He also showed his confidence and attitude to the game with a flick pass that nearly set Ireland away once more down the left-hand touchline.
He certainly didn’t look like a guy ready to retreat into his shell because of his recent selection disappointment.
Ireland earned a bonus-point victory against a very difficult English side with 22-year-old and 25-year-old out-halves vying for the same position. What a luxury that is, and long may the competition continue.
We shouldn’t watch the game while counting errors to swing selection in favour of one player over another. It’s an unenjoyable way of watching a game and being a coach, it backs you into a corner when making selections. If you pick on errors then you must pick on all errors.
Sam Prendergast is a significant talent. His ceiling is clearly very high and he’s still only at the beginning of his international journey.
Jack may have done enough to tilt the selection in his favour for an away trip to Scotland. I feel he’s earned the chance to start the game and lead the week for Ireland in what will be another very difficult game in round 2 of the championship.
While that’s my view of the out-half situation, it doesn’t mean that Sam had a shocker. He had a positive outing and there’s no doubt Ireland would likely have won the game had he stayed on too. His own high standards in the autumn and with Leinster mean that a few errors get highlighted.
Simon Easterby enjoyed his first outing as Ireland’s head coach, smiling his way through the game and reflecting positively on his side's outing in his post-game duties.
He’s an impressive coach, and we need to trust his process in the weeks ahead.
Watch Scotland U20s v Ireland U20s in the Six Nations on Saturday from 7.30pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player
Watch Scotland v Ireland in the Guinness Six Nations on Sunday from 2pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app or listen to live commentary on Sunday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
