Do we talk about outhalves too much?
Players frequently reference how Jack Crowley and Sam Prendergast, the two young men at the heart of the national outhalf debate, do well to deal with the noise. Those creating the racket, fans and media, are some dose!
Maybe, but we haven’t had a proper outhalf discussion for well over a decade. Between Ronan O’Gara’s last start in 2011 and the end of the 2023 World Cup, Johnny Sexton accounted for 68 per cent of starts in one of Irish sport’s most revered jerseys.
Who will start at 10 for Ireland during the Six Nations?
We’ve been due a family-splitting, interprovincial discussion. Everyone has their view. Speaking on The Counter Ruck podcast, Gordon D’Arcy said he’d pick Crowley for his greater defensive solidity. Others have expressed different views, highlighting Prendergast’s passing game.
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Can data tell us who is right? Not unequivocally. There is no cure-all stat, no single figure which says one is playing better than the other. But, we can combine a number of recent trends and make an educated guess on how Crowley and Prendergast’s recent statistical output matches what Ireland want from their outhalf.
D’Arcy does have a point. Tackle success can be rugby’s most misleading stat. There are good missed tackles (à la Garry Ringrose flying out of the line, missing his man but driving him back towards a swarming horde of team-mates) and there are bad missed tackles.
Yet the outhalf tends not to be the man tasked with making ‘good’ missed tackles. Mistakes at 10 more often than not fall into the ‘bad’ category. In this year’s domestic action, Crowley has a 89 per cent tackle success rate, Prendergast 71 per cent.
Will this factor enter into Simon Easterby’s thinking? Not as much as other areas. Under Andy Farrell, and presumably now Easterby, Ireland appear to select by highlighting a player’s strengths instead of relegating due to weaknesses.
How, then, do Prendergast and Crowley’s strengths match Ireland’s style of play? According to stats company Opta, Ireland have averaged the most carries in nine of the 11 Six Nations Championships since 2014. Only four times has a team averaged more than 200 passes per match across a whole Six Nations. All four were Ireland, including two of the last three years (2022 and 2024).
Ireland love holding on to the ball. Does Prendergast playing for a Leinster side which has become more comfortable without the ball, employing Jacques Nienaber’s defensive system, disadvantage him?
Numbers wise, no.
During the November internationals, Ireland averaged 131 carries and 210 passes a game. Taking the more significant provincial games this season, the interpros and European clashes, Leinster and Munster are below these numbers. Leinster average 121 carries and 179 passes a game, Munster 118 and 174.
Contrary to the narrative of Leinster now resembling a South African team, they come closer to Ireland’s attacking volume than Munster. Advantage Prendergast? Maybe, but the gap is negligible.
Individually, while Ireland have attempted to share the playmaking load, there is no doubt that Farrell, Easterby and co want their outhalf to be a dominant figure. One way of measuring this is attacking involvements, combining the passes, carries and kicks made by an individual 10.
So far this season, in Ireland games and the bigger provincial outings, Prendergast is averaging 0.62 attacking involvements (AIs) per minute. Crowley’s figure is 0.53. In a broad sense, Prendergast looks to be a busier, more efficient player. Domestically, his seven try involvements in 528 minutes of action, compared to Crowley’s eight in 1,183 minutes, adds to that sense.
Dig a little deeper. In the November internationals, Prendergast made a huge impact (granted, these stats don’t measure if touches were positive or negative, but Ireland do embrace mistakes as a trade off for ambition), averaging 0.8 AIs per minute. Since then, his output in Leinster’s interpros and European games has dropped to 0.54.
By contrast, in a tricky November campaign, Crowley struggled for influence, averaging 0.44 AIs per minute. With Munster this season, that figure has grown to 0.55.
Does this indicate a form reversal? After a busy November, is Prendergast now struggling to impact games in the same way, whereas Crowley is on up?
Perhaps. But it could also be a reflection of Prendergast playing against La Rochelle when Leinster seemed content playing without the ball. The influence of Jamison Gibson-Park, a more dominant, playmaking scrumhalf, could also be a factor.
This could explain how, when Crowley played alongside Gibson-Park for Ireland, his involvements dropped. Prendergast having a significant 0.85 AIs per minute against Australia, a game in which he started alongside Gibson-Park, throws a spanner into that theory.
What about the stats which shine a light on an Irish outhalf’s most important job? While kicking is a vital part the game, Ireland have multiple options to secure territory via the boot. Apart from Gibson-Park, no one player is as important as the 10 when it comes to opening gaps in the defence.
In last year’s Six Nations, according to Opta, no outhalf beat more defenders (10) or made more line breaks than Crowley (2). Only Finn Russell matched his offload total of five.
This year, using the same subset of Ireland and bigger provincial games, Crowley beats Prendergast for line breaks (four vs two) but loses out when comparing defenders beaten (17 vs nine) and offloads (three vs two). During the November campaign, Prendergast made seven passes which led to line breaks. The next best player across any nation was on four. Granted, starting against a poor Fiji outfit likely inflated those numbers.
A narrative has emerged that Crowley is both a better defender and a greater running threat, while Prendergast’s distribution gives him an edge in the passing game. The above numbers don’t disprove that theory. There’s not a lot in it, while Crowley’s form has improved since November.
Where does that leave us?
Within the tranche of figures above, one number stands out. During Ireland’s victory over Australia, Crowley’s impact off the bench was widely praised. He had 16 attacking involvements in just 15 minutes of action. Neither he nor Prendergast has bettered that 1.1 AIs per minute figure.
Which perhaps shines a light on the way Ireland should go. Prendergast’s ability to pick off defenders with his range of passing suits their high volume attack. Crowley, though, can also thrive in this system, and has recent history of doing so with a high impact bench performance.
As much as the stats here have failed to give the black and white answer we all crave, perhaps they’re leaning towards this model. Sharing the load, a ploy which will allow Ireland to ride the hot hand, appears to be the way to go. Gone are the days when Ireland rely on just one dominant outhalf.
That much we can say for sure.
