Maybe Sam Prendergast has been picking over the bones of Johnny Sexton’s words and themes after all. The former Irish captain, appropriately, has become a kind of “outhalf whisperer” to the Irish players during this Autumn Nations Series.
“His mindset, his outlook on attack, is very good,” says Prendergast.
Holding an opinion while confidently walking a line without oozing arrogance is a tiny giveaway that chimes with Sexton, a player whose attitude was always a driver of his game.
At 21 years old, Prendergast, just like Jack Crowley and Ciarán Frawley, will always be the subject of comparison. And the things they do will inevitably have Sexton’s shadow falling across their plays until one of them knocks hardest on the door of number 10, with Crowley thumping loudest at the moment.
The position demands certain qualities: a leadership gene, the ability to grasp the nettle and pitch presence. In that, Prendergast’s first Irish start on Saturday places him in the foothills of experience but still, the 6ft 4in pivot can stand his ground, not least of all when the words “defence” and “slight physique” are dropped into the conversation.
“I dunno, I think I can get better at it [defence]. Slight? I think that’s a bit harsh,” he says. “I’m just quite tall. I could definitely put on a bit of size [he’s presently listed at 91kg]. I’m not in a huge rush to do that. I think I’m decently heavy for the position I play. I’m definitely trying to get better at my defence. I’ve been working with coaches in Leinster and Ireland about it.
“I think Jack has defended very well over the first couple of games, Johnny was a great defender, people who I look up to like Owen Farrell, great defender. You spend half the game without the ball. You’ve got to be very good at it. I am really trying to get better at it. I think the slight thing is a bit harsh.”
Like Jamie Heaslip, Prendergast is an army baby. Both parents, his mother Ciara and father Mark, were in the Irish military. As a five-year-old child he and his family, including older brother Cian, who is on the Irish bench today, lived in the Middle East as his father’s role as UN peacekeeper took the family overseas.
They lived in Syria before the current war broke out in 2011, when popular discontent with the Baathist government led to large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across the country as part of the Arab Spring.
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“He was a lieutenant colonel, he’s actually retired for a number of years now, I’m not sure how many,” says Prendergast. “And yeah, he was overseas a good bit and when I was five, Cian eight, and my sister two, we all moved over to Syria for a year and a half. We were over living in Damascus.
“Yeah, she [mother] was in the army. Her and my dad were in the same cadet class, that’s how they met. I can only really remember from when she was retired in the army.”
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Cian, who is three years older and made his Irish debut against Fiji, recalls wider-ranging posts. In an interview in The 42 before last year’s World Cup in France, he spoke of travelling to Jordan, Lebanon and South Africa. Both brothers went to a US government-run school, where they played a variety of sport, but not rugby. They were not the only Irish family living in the area.
Diarmuid Mangan, who has become a close friend of Sam, lived close by in Damascus.
“I have great memories of it,” says Prendergast. “I met Diarmuid Mangan, who I played [Ireland] under-20s with. His family were there at the same time, so we spent over a year together. Then we were living together when we left school and were in the Leinster Academy together. It was actually quite a bit of coincidence, and it was quite special getting to share special days.”
While Prendergast’s sporting background was also peripatetic, a Leinster Senior Schools Cup final against Clongowes Wood that was never played due to the Covid-19 pandemic was as good a traditional rugby immersion as any. After the early romances with soccer and Gaelic football petered out, rugby took hold.
Saturday offers what is a second debut of sorts, his first start in a Test match. Cian presented him with the shirt after the Argentina game, but the thrill of running out at the Aviva Stadium will also have a first-time feeling. Performing better than last time is the theme of the day.
“It went okay, I suppose,” he says of the Argentina match. “We won in the end, I thought we controlled the pace of the game well towards the end but, like every game, loads of little work-ons. No game is ever perfect. I think I can improve on that, when I get a chance.
“It’s just constantly trying to add things, progression really. Yeah ... like there’s stuff that probably got you picked into camp, but you are also constantly trying to get better at other things, defence, kicking.
“You are never really ‘ah I’m pretty good at everything’. You are constantly working on something. That’s what makes it quite exciting. I don’t think there is any player in the world that ticks every box. It’s trying to tick as many as you can.”
He grew up watching Sexton, then Danny Cipriani, Quade Cooper and Damian McKenzie. Good company. A few boxes are ticked. More begin this afternoon.
